Seafood Salad with Lemon-Garlic-Herb Dressing

As soon as we have a hint of summery weather, seafood salad is on my mind. I really believe it’s an ideal meal when it’s hot outside. In fact, if I could spend every day of summer sitting poolside with a supply of such a salad in a nearby refrigerator, I’d be extremely happy. Sadly, there’s no pool in my backyard, but whipping up more seafood salad every few days is definitely doable. I had just read about a lovely-sounding version in Tartine All Day: Modern Recipes for the Home Cook, and the time was right. During this late spring-not-quite-summer yet season, the local farms have fennel, celery, onion, and new potatoes. And, all of those things happen to be perfect elements of a seafood salad. For the main attraction, the seafood, you can pick and choose whatever combination you prefer. This time, I kept it simple with just shrimp and squid, but chunks of halibut, some scallops, and clams would have been great mixed in as well. What I really liked was the preparation method of the recipe in the book. 

You begin my making a quick and easy court bouillon with water, bay leaves, thyme sprigs, sliced lemon, chopped shallot, a few peppercorns, and some salt. The seafood was cooked in batches in the simmering stock. By cooking the shrimp by itself before cooking the squid by itself, you have better control of the timing and can pull everything out of the stock with a slotted spoon at just the right moment. As the seafood drained and cooled a bit, new potatoes were then cooked in the same court bouillon. This was a great idea for adding flavor to the potatoes and for making the process efficient by only using one pot. After the potatoes were tender but not mushy, they were drained and allowed to cool. The dressing was a mixture of lemon juice, olive oil, minced garlic, chopped oregano, minced shallot, and salt and pepper. I wanted to give it just a bit of thickness, and so I added some mayonnaise. In the book, the salad is just those items: the seafood, potatoes, and dressing. I added thinly sliced raw fennel and chopped celery and served it with dressed arugula on the side. 

Two lessons I learned from this were: always cook some potatoes in a court bouillon after poaching seafood; and, when you have fresh, local celery, potatoes, and fennel, put them in a seafood salad. I just need to work on getting a pool into my backyard, and I’ll be set. 

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Spicy Squid and Shrimp Stir-Fry

In my last post, I apologized for all the salads lately. Of course, I blame this on the temporary kitchen. As long as we’re living in our temporary home waiting for our new home to be finished, I’m going to lack interest in spending time in this little kitchen that doesn’t have enough countertop space. I’ve been cooking mostly quick and simple things that don’t require much room to prepare with only a few forays into baking. Below is a photo of the current state of my new kitchen. It’s still very unfinished, but I can’t wait for the day when I can start cooking in it. 

In the meantime, here’s another dish that was simple to prepare and one that came packed with big, spicy flavors. This is from The Slanted Door book by Charles Phan, and this is a book I purchased back around the holidays. I read the book right after purchasing it and marked a lot of pages of things to try. I tried the Crab with Cellophane Noodles for my birthday in March and loved it. I’ve been meaning to try the Vegetarian Spring Rolls and Vegetarian Imperial Rolls, but sadly, they both would be easier to construct with more work space than I currently have. Other recipes marked include Vietnamese Chicken Salad, Spicy Lemongrass Soup, Seared Scallops in Vietnamese Beurre Blanc, Shrimp and Long Beans, Cashew Chicken with gingko nuts and Chinese dates, and the luscious-looking Vietnamese Chocolate Tres Leches Cake. When I get settled in my new kitchen, I plan to spend a couple of days cooking through these pages. For now, I’ll stick to simpler dishes like this stir-fry. 

In the book, it’s made with only squid, but I added shrimp as well. The squid tubes were cut into rings, and the shrimp were cleaned and deveined. I chopped a pineapple into chunks and prepped the bell pepper and jalapeno. The cooking goes very quickly, so everything should be prepped and ready. First, the squid and shrimp were cooked in batches in a hot wok over high heat. Cooking a few pieces at a time ensure the heat in the wok doesn’t drop too much as the seafood is added. Each batch of the squid and shrimp was removed after cooking for a minute or two and set aside. Next, pineapple chunks, bell pepper strips, jalapeno slices, a split serrano chile, and a couple of tablespoons of sake were added to the wok. This mixture was cooked for a couple of minutes before the seafood was returned to the wok. Thai basil leaves and fish sauce were added and stirred to combine. I served the stir-fry with steamed jasmine rice and more Thai basil. 

I’ve mentioned before my love of spicy chiles and sweet fruit with seafood, and I was delighted with it here. With the sliced jalapeno with seeds left in place, this was a dish with definite heat as it was intended. The sweet pineapple balances the heat well. This could easily become part of our regular meal rotation. Spicy stir-fry for Friday dinner works for me in any kitchen. 

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Vegetable Summer Rolls with Chile Lime Dipping Sauce and Salt and Pepper Squid

What we have with these two dishes is a delicious mix of contrasts. With the rolls, the pale, white, chewy rice paper wrappers are filled with bright, colorful, crunchy vegetables, and they're mild tasting until dipped in the chile lime sauce. Meanwhile, the fried squid is crispy on the outside and coated with a riot of flavor after being stir-fried with garlic, green onions, and chiles. Under the crisp coating, the squid is pale and mild. These recipes came from an article about party food in last June's Food and Wine. I didn't actually make them for a party, but I can tell you they would have worked well for one. The summer rolls can sit in the refrigerator for a few hours after being assembled, and the squid can be kept warm in the oven after it's been fried. I did make one small change to the summer rolls. One of the filling items was supposed to have been rice vermicelli, but I was determined to use all raw ingredients and not have to cook anything for the rolls. So, I used shredded lettuce in place of the noodles. I made a slight change to the squid as well since I skipped the dusting with five spice powder that was suggested. Otherwise, I followed the instructions and was thrilled with the results.

For me, making summer rolls is one of those fun kitchen tasks like pitting cherries and rolling fresh pasta dough. You soften a brittle rice paper wrapper in warm water, lay it flat, and pile on the fillings before folding in the sides and rolling it up snuggly. It seals itself into a nice, little package. I think the self-sealing is possibly what makes it so fun. The fillings here were thin strips of red and yellow bell pepper, shredded lettuce instead of rice vermicelli, strips of avocado which I tossed with lime juice to prevent it from turning brown, julienned cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, Thai basil leaves from my garden, and I might have added a few thin strips of serrano chile as well. The dipping sauce for the rolls was made with fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, water, and a chopped red chile. The fried squid was breaded simply by dipping the cut pieces into egg and then into cornstarch. It was fried in batches and left to drain. Once all the squid was fried, it was then quickly stir-fried in a little oil in which garlic, green onions, minced red onion, and a finely chopped jalapeno had been cooked.

I actually really like squid, but I realize it might not be everyone's favorite ingredient. When it's fried though, it's hard not to like, and this version with the added flavor from the final stir fry was especially good. The salad in roll form was fresh and light while feeling a little more substantial than just a salad on a plate. These two dishes full of contrasts went together perfectly.

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Chiringuito Seafood Paella with Saffron Allioli

I started the story of a dinner party the other day, and here it continues with two more parts of the meal including an asparagus salad and seafood paella. I thought I knew paella, but I learned so much more from The New Spanish Table. For authentic Paella Valenciana, you must use the proper rice and cook it in a wide, flat paella pan outdoors over a fire of burning vine branches or orange tree shoots. It contains chicken, rabbit, possibly duck, and occasionally vaquetes, which are land snails, but never seafood or chorizo. Traditionally, the only allowable additional garnishes were flat green beans, artichokes, and butter beans. The focus of the dish is always the rice. There’s also a suggestion that paella is only for lunch and never for dinner, and any dish that includes those other ingredients like seafood should be called something other than paella. To be named Valenciana, it has to be exactly right. Clearly, I didn’t really know paella at all. The good news is that there are also recipes in the book for ‘paellas’ which make no attempt at being by-the-book, traditional Paella Valenciana. I decided to make one of those, chiringuito seafood paella, which Von Bremzen describes as ‘a minimalist affair, with few other ingredients besides seafood and rice.’ The one important garnish, which I almost completely forgot to serve, was the saffron allioli.

Before I get into the specifics of making the paella, I also wanted to show a simple asparagus salad I served while the rice simmered. This is called asparagus on asparagus, and it’s another playful and easy dish from Happy in the Kitchen. You start with a bunch of peeled asparagus and set four spears aside and then cook the rest until tender. Those were left whole and chilled. The four reserved spears were chopped and added to a saucepan with a little water and olive oil. They were simmered until very tender and then pureed with dijon mustard, lemon juice, and salt. What results is a thick asparagus sauce which was served in cups for dunking the whole, chilled spears.

So, back to the seafood paella. I prepared a shrimp stock and cleaned and cut the seafood in advance. The stock was warmed with some saffron while the paella prep began. Olive oil was heated in a large saute pan because I don’t yet own a proper paella pan, but now I really want one. The recipe suggested using monkfish, but that’s not a sustainable choice and is on the avoid list right now. I used true cod instead. Cod, cut into one-inch pieces, was added to the olive oil and seared for about a minute. It was removed from the pan, and squid tubes cut into rings were added. The squid was seared and then pushed to the outside of the pan. More olive oil was added to the pan, and minced garlic was cooked until fragrant. Tomatoes that had been grated on a box grater were added followed by some paprika. Then, the rice was added. In the book, there’s a thorough explanation of types of rices to consider for paella. The most reliable and easiest to locate is Italian Arborio rice, and that’s what I used. The rice was stirred in the pan until well coated, and then the warmed shrimp and saffron stock was added. From that point on, the rice was no longer stirred. The pan was shaken to distribute the stock throughout the rice, but otherwise, the rice was left to cook undisturbed. Chopped parsley was added, and after about five minutes, the cod was returned to the pan along with some littleneck clams. Once the stock had absorbed down almost to the surface of the rice, the pan went into a 425 degree F oven for 15 minutes. The pan was then removed from the oven, covered, and left to sit for five minutes. The lid was removed, and it was left to sit for another five minutes. The sitting improves the rice. While it sat, shrimp were sauteed in a separate pan with some minced garlic.

The paella was served in the pan with the sauteed shrimp on top with no garnishes other than some lemon wedges. I wasn’t sure I had seasoned the rice carefully enough during the cooking time, but the seafood, and particularly the clams, added such a nice taste of the sea that it worked out fine. Just as everyone was taking their last bites, I realized I had completely forgotten the saffron allioli which was to have been served with the paella. Our guests, and this is truly a sign of the best kind of dinner guests, said ‘go get it, let’s have a taste!’ So we all piled one more scoop of paella onto our plates and topped it with the allioli. The garlicky, saffron-scented, thick sauce added a lovely something extra, but the plain paella wasn’t bad at all on its own. Up next, I’ll show dessert.

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