My Fishy, My Whole Fishy

My blog is a bit behind the times, considering I'm going to talk about my dinner from a whole week ago. But, school takes up a lot of time. Last Saturday, I bought myself a whole rainbow trout for dinner because I like to eat whole animals, so I quite like to cook myself a whole fish. I tried to make one once before, and I think I overcooked it a bit and didn't quite make the most of it. This time, I looked around a bit to find a recipe, not so I could follow it, but so I could get a good cooking time and method. I think I did a pretty decent job, so I'll tell you what I did and show you what a real fish with a head and tail looks like.

I decided to go with a baking method. So, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees F.

I seasoned the inside of the fish with salt and pepper (or actually I should have but I almost forgot until the fish was stuffed so I sprinkled some on then). I stuffed the fish with thin slices of lemon, a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley, one or two chopped green onions and some capers.

Then I put the fish on an oiled baking sheet. Here's the fishy before he went in the oven:
I baked the fish for 20 minutes at 400 F. It came out pretty nicely cooked, at least it wasn't dry and overcooked. The fish flaked nicely and went well with the tartness of lemon juice I squeezed on it. The sea-like briny capers really complement fish, although I guess this is a freshwater fish (maybe it's not right for it to be briny). There were some presentation problems, though. I guess I didn't use enough oil on the pan because the fish skin stuck a little, not that that's a huge problem when I'm serving myself. But, it could be embarrassing when serving guests. If you want to be sure your fish won't stick, oil generously.

The cooked fish found his way to my plate and looked different and more eatable than the raw fish:
I had a great time tearing the fish apart getting out the good edible parts while removing the head, tail, bones, and skin. I really like the way fish flakes. I think it makes it more fun to eat than meat, sometimes. Is that a weird thing to say? Does anyone else think eating fish is fun?

2 Quick Dinners in the Colour Yellow, Plus a Random Chinese Baking Comment

I think I'm pretty behind on my blogging, not that a lot of people would notice. But, a lot of what I've been up to is food related, so I foresee three posts in the next couple of days, at least.

I talked about going to T&T Supermarket a week ago. When I go there, I like to buy Chinese-style baked goods. Last week, I got a taro bun with almonds. There weren't many almonds, but I didn't really care because I got that topping to avoid the sickly sweet "pineapple" topping on so many of the sweeter buns. Not that it's terrible or should be avoided, but I didn't feel like eating it for breakfast on Sunday. Chinese baked goods, judging from T&T's and things other people say are usually very soft. Buns like the taro bun are soft and slightly sweet. They're a nice change from other bread products.

The taro filling was purple and pleasantly sweet with a starchy texture. . . I think, it was a while ago. Anyways, I liked it. I think I may still prefer red bean filling, though. I think I'm the only white person I know who enjoys red bean sweets, I tried feeding red bean candy to my family and nobody really liked it. My sister in particular was disgusted and didn't finish her piece. Personally, I think it like it because I'm just that big of a fan of beans. If I can have bean texture in sweet form, it's fine by me. Probably the most revelatory baked good that I've bought at T&T was called "cumin bread." I only saw it once. It was a soft bread, not sweet, spiced with cumin and topped with cumin seeds containing raisins and walnuts. It was a very good breakfast. The reason it was a revelation was that it gave me the idea to spice oatmeal with cumin since if it works in a "raisin bread", why shouldn't it work in oatmeal. . . like cinnamon. That may not make sense but it's how my mind works. I'm a big fan of cumin, needless to say.

I didn't think I would have that much to say about the bun, but on to Tuesday. I made a couple of fried eggs on top of sauteed spinach and onion plus corn on the cob. First the corn,

I hadn't had corn on the cob in recent memory. Boiled and then spread with some butter, It was really good. I liked the sweetness and the sensation of biting into it. Plus, that bright sunny yellow is visually appealing. I will have to eat more corn this summer. Actually, it was kind of funny because I tried to boil the corn in a not terribly large pot. It didn't fit until i cut off some of the stem. So, use a big pot to boil corn.

On to the eggs and spinach. They were tasty as the onions were nicely caramelized. I messed up one of the eggs and broke the yolk, which was a big disappointment. I guess my point is that I looooooove runny egg yolks and the perfect over easy egg. I have a friend who is disgusted with runny yolks, but they have been a great pleasure to me since I was a kid. I remember eating over easy eggs on toast on the weekend when I was little. I used to save the yolk till the end and relish every bit. So here's a gratuitous yolk shot:

On Wednesday, I made some vegetarian comfort food, and no I'm not a vegetarian, but I find beans and legumes very satisfying. Anyways, I felt like some lentils and had leftover dried red lentils from making this soup. I decided to make a curry soup also using the remainder of my bunch of spinach. I began by sauteing about half an onion in some olive oil. Then I added two cups of water, a teaspoon of chicken bouillon (not so vegetarian after all. . . oops), and a heaping teaspoon of curry powder. I added a half cup of rinsed red lentils and boiled it for fifteen minutes. Then I added some torn spinach, probably about three cups, and cooked it until that wilted. It looked, a little bit gross perhaps:

But that doesn't mean it didn't taste good. And it did taste good, or else I wouldn't mention it. It had a good lentil texture, I guess it's the starch and protein, the leguminess. (Made up words are fine.) The curry flavour worked well and the spinach provided a nice contrast in colour and texture as well as a mild flavour. I thoroughly enjoyed eating this.

Signs of Spring. . . My Salad Can Kick Your Salad's Ass

So, making a salad for dinner tonight I thought I would blog about it and call it "my salad can kick your salad's ass." Needless to say I was pretty confident about my salad. It was going to be freaking awesome. How could it not be? I was sauteing shrimp, onion, and garlic. I was making my own croutons. It was going to have fresh spinach and tomato. Anyways, we'll see how it turned out.

I've been thinking about making more salad, because it's spring. Did you need to be told?

Anyways, I also made a good salad a while ago with leaf lettuce, shredded carrot, canned herring, bottled roasted red pepper salad dressing, and toasted tortilla. It was good because the oily fish and crunchy tortilla were distributed in pretty much every bite. Plus bottled dressing is pretty well balanced.

This salad I made tonight:
Actually, I was pretty good. It looks good. Actually, I suppose the only flaw was the way I dressed it. I tried to make my own dressing which was about 1 part Dijon mustard: 4 parts white vinegar: 2 parts extra virgin olive oil. I mixed it with a fork, and my not have gotten it quite right. I think i left a lot of the oil behind, let's just say it was a touch too vinegary. Solution: I need to get some better vinegar like red wine or balsamic. Other than that, the croutons were crisp after being tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme and baked at 350 until toasty. The onions were nice and sweet, the shrimp were perfectly cooked, and the tomato was enjoyable if not super tasty. The spinach was fine, too.

Anyways, all of this reminds me how good salads future will be. Why? Because soon I will be gardening and have freshly picked greens. They are so nice and tender. Plus, there should be ones with interesting flavours, shapes, and colours. And late in the summer, there will be tomatoes, fresh and tasty, even yellow ones. Honestly, I can't wait until I can stop relying on mediocre supermarket produce. Maybe I will perfect the art of making a vinaigrette by then, or maybe I will just cave and use bottled.

What's for Dinner?

I thought I'd talk about one surprisingly good think i whipped up for dinner this week and what I mad tonight, which was also pretty good (and got photographed). The point of this is that cooking for one is an everyday activity, for me at least.

On Monday, I decided that I would whip up some fried rice with sticky rice left over from the Bul Go Gi House. No, the rice wasn't fresh. I fried up some onion, tofu, mushrooms, garlic, and a small zucchini in olive oil (very Asian I know). Then I added a bunch of rice and some hoisin sauce and garlic chili sauce. No, there wasn't egg. Does that make it not fried rice? I don't know. Anyways, it was good mainly because of the taste of the rice. I didn't know rice could taste that good. Is that taste telling me that sticky rice is bad for me?

Tonight, as I was walking home from work I composed a pasta in my head using broccoli and pork. At home, I sauteed a quarter onion in olive oil and added broccoli and a clove of garlic (minced of course). I sauteed that a bit and added some finely sliced pork chop, seasoned with black pepper and cooked the pork, added a splash of pasta water, and stirred in some al dente tortiglioni. Then I put it all in a big ass bowl and sprinkled it with grated Romano cheese. Later, I decided it needed a touch of salt as well. This is what it looked like:

I noticed several good things about this dish. The onions got nicely caramelized and were quite sweet and delicious. The cheese got fairly well distributed and contributed saltiness and creaminess, a bite with cheese was a good bite. The pork was also moist and tasty. It's actually been a while since I cooked meat, so there was a bit of novelty there. The broccoli remained crisp and it did not have a nasty broccoli pasta flavour, perhaps because it wasn't cooked to death. Finally, that pasta. Pasta tastes good to a carb lover like me. Plus, isn't that shape fun. Trust me, it's fun to eat. Don't you like stuff that's fun to eat? Overall, this was a pretty decent quick dinner for after work.

And now, couple of other food notes from this week:

You know when you think somebody will bring donuts to a meeting? And then they bring strudels and turnovers instead. And then you choose some giant strudel sprinkled with peanuts and covered in vanilla and butterscotch icing, probably the richest, sugariest one. And you eat it all even though you're not that hungry. And then you feel a little sick from sugar overload. But you had to eat it all because it was there, a gift to you. That's about what happened to me on Wednesday.

Then tonight, I went to the Sugarbowl and ate most of a bowl of Elk and Mushroom soup. I'm not sure how smart it is to order soup at 10:30 at night, it's been sitting it that pot a long time. Anyways, the mushrooms were plentiful and not your ordinary mushrooms so that was good. There was a lot of rice in the mild but tasty broth. Then there was the elk. It was ground and I can't say I tasted anything distinctive about it. Oh well, at least I can add it to the list of animals I know I've eaten. . . cow, pig, chicken, duck, alligator, lamb, baby cow (I know I'm evil), ostrich, bison, deer (I think), boar (I think), . . . maybe more I can't think of. This list excludes any animal of the sea, because that's a whole other issue. Plus, I was only vaguely aware of what I was eating in Japan, especially seafood, which may have included baby eels and a sushi of my creation featuring two generations of salmon. What animals won't I eat? Endangered species, bear, and shark. Didn't anyone ever tell you bears and sharks are our friends?