BLACK SPAGHETTINI IN WHITE CLAM SAUCE WITH GARLIC

While visiting my local fish monger yesterday (Tuesday is a good day to visit the market—other than a Friday), I saw beautiful littleneck clams. Typically, I’m not very fond of clams because, many times, at restaurants, they could be a bit chewy.  Since the price was only $5.00 for a dozen of the beautiful mollusks (about 1 ½”- 1 ¾”  in diameter), I opted to give it a try and purchased a dozen in addition to the salmon and scallops that were on my list.  What should I do with them? I decided to make a pasta dish with a clam sauce – or clam sauce with pasta.  Since there was a package of one of my favorite pastas from the Italian market (spaghetti nero di sepia from PASTIFICIO F.LLI SETARO) in my pantry (squid ink spaghetti), and since I’m a lover of garlic (lots) I opted to create a dish with black spaghetti and a clam sauce simmered in white wine with lots of garlic.  Okay, nothing new from the traditional classic “linguini with clam sauce recipes” but with a (slight) twist.  I ensured to watch over the clams as each one opened up, sort of like a mother cat watching over as giving birth to each kitten.  Well… Let’s get back to the clams.  I shook the pan constantly and as each clam opened up, removed it and kept it in a warm stainless steel bowl, covered with aluminum foil.  When done, not only were the clams juicy, plump, succulent and melt-in-your mouth, the garlic flavor was there but not overpowering as one would think, considering how much garlic I used (about 20 cloves).  The squid-ink spaghetti added more flavor to the dish.  Probably, the best clams I’ve ever eaten.  And, I’ve tried making them before from time to time.  Was it the product or the cook?

Ingredients:

4 weighted ounces black spaghetti or linguini

1/8 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
¾ cup chopped garlic (about 20 cloves chopped in the food processor)
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup white wine (chardonnay)
1/4 cup water
12 littleneck clams, scrubbed
½ cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
Freshly ground pepper

Directions

Bring a large pot of water to a boil and season generously with salt. Boil the pasta until tender but still firm.

While the pasta cooks make the clam sauce. Heat the olive oil in a large cast iron pan over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and cook until softened but not browned, about 3 minutes. Add the pepper flakes and cook for about 30 seconds. Add the wine and water and increase the heat to high. Add the clams, cover, and cook, shaking the pan constantly.  As each clam opens, remove place in a warm stainless steel bowl. Continue until all clams are opened, about 4-5 minutes total.  (longer for more than 12 clams).

Add parsley to clam sauce; season with salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste.  Drain the pasta and plate in heated bowls.   Divide clams evenly among bowls.  Drizzle clam sauce on pasta and clams. Serve immediately.

SASHIMI COCKTAIL WITH TUNA AND SALMON

Sashimi Cocktail

“New style sashimi in a martini glass”

I've always enjoyed Nobu's "New Style Sashimi" and have been making it for at least a decade.  This is a little bit of  a spin on the dish, but the underlying ingredients are there.  Sushi-grade tuna and salmon are served with a yuzu and a soy vinaigrette, lightly cooked with a combination of warm oils, then topped with soy and bamboo smoked sesame seeds, paddlefish caviar, pickled ginger and wasabi, garnished with a salmon skin crackle.  The "garnishes" are the fun part.  The salmon skin crackles are a very tasty garnish--sort of like the "olive" in a martini.

Ingredients

·         8 oz. Sushi-grade Salmon, skins reserved

·         8 oz. Sushi-grade Tuna

·         4 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

·         4 Tablespoons Yuzu Juice

·         2 Tablespoons Minced Garlic

·         14 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil

·         4 Tablespoons Sesame Oil

·         1 Tablespoon Soy Sesame Seed (or White)

·         1 Tablespoon Bamboo Smoked Sesame Seed (or Black)

·         2 Tablespoons of Paddlefish caviar (or the real stuff )

·         1/4 cup of Daikon, shredded on a Japanese spiral slicer

·         2 Scallions cut on the diagonal

·         8 pieces of Pickled Ginger, for garnish

·         Fresh Wasabi Root, grated on a shark-skin grater (or the tube stuff) for garnish

Make the salmon skin crackles:  Cut salmon skins into 1-inch strips. Heat a sauté pan.  Add about 2 Tablespoons of the oil and fry salmon skins until very crisp. Remove from pan; place on paper towels and set aside.  When cooled down, thread onto stainless steel or bamboo mini skewers. This is the garnish.

Mix the soy and yuzu juices with garlic; set aside.

Cut the salmon and tuna into 1/2" chunks. 

Combine the olive oil and sesame oil in a nonreactive small saucepan. Set over moderately high heat and bring almost to a boil (about 200°); the surface will shimmer. Remove from the heat and  set aside.

To make the martini (or plate):

Line the bottom of four chilled martini glasses with the shredded daikon. Place equal portions of salmon and tuna in each glass. Drizzle the soy/yuzu/garlic mixture on each serving.  Then, pour the warm oil mixture on each one to "lightly" sear the fish.  Sprinkle the scallions and  both sesame seeds on each.  Add a dollop of caviar and about two slices of ginger, and another dollop of wasabi on each.  Garnish each with a salmon skin crackle. Serves 4 

SALMON FIVE (HUNDRED) AT FIVE

I am a lover of sushi. Been one since my number-two friend introduced me to it back in the late 70's.  So, this means that I do NOT like ANY fish that is over cooked, over cooked or over- cooked.   One fish, in particular, that is difficult to find -- cooked properly -- at many restaurants (unless you're at Le Bernardin or Morimoto or Nobu) is salmon.   Actually, I retract that statement as I recall my comment of yesteryear, "The best  fish that I ever  had (prior to visiting the three restaurants mentioned above) was served at a steak house. "  During those days, I would order "salmon black and blue. " The ONLY time that I ever visited a steak house back then was on business trips.

So, during the past decade, or more, I started making my own (very, very) simple salmon dish.  It was a healthy and a perfect alternative when I was home alone and didn't want the $4.25 "Greek salad" from the take-out joint across the street from my gym (which, by the way, was very good, too--that's another story).

I love to call this dish "Salmon Cooked Five at Five" but in actuality, it is "Five Hundred at Five."  The salmon is cooked in a 500 degree oven for five minutes.   It is served over mashed potatoes, or lentils or rice and drizzled with a fresh scallion (or chive) oil.

My local fish monger always has a full salmon available to select the perfect portion size.  I would indicate to him how thick to cut the salmon and ask him to remove the bone but keep the skin on.  Can't get fresher than that.  If that's not  available, then salmon fillets could work here, but ensure that the skin is on.   It's that simple.  Here goes.

Serves 2
Two 6 1/2 oz salmon fillets, about 1-1.5 inches thick, skin on
Unsalted butter to rub on pan
About 2 Tablespoons butter, cut into 1/4 inch chunks

Rub butter on pan.  Place salmon, flesh side down, on pan.  Evenly spread out butter chunks on salmon skin. Set aside and let rest until salmon gets to room temperature.

Place in oven and bake for 5 minutes.  If salmon is thinner than 1-1.5 inches, adjust baking time. 

Remove from oven;  let salmon rest for about 1-2 minutes, then peel back and remove skin (use this to make a salmon skin crackle -- another story).  Remove salmon from tray, flip it over and place the fish on a bed of mashed potatoes, lentils or rice (uh oh...other stories).  Top with scallion oil.  Recipe follows.

SCALLION OIL
3/4 oz of scallions (green part only)
4 oz of grapeseed or canola oil
1/8 Teaspoon Maldon salt (or Kosher)
Chop scallions.  Place scallions into blender with oil and salt.  Process until the mixture forms a thick, creamy consistency.  Pour into small saucepan and heat.  Drizzle over salmon.

GINGER AND GARLIC FRIED RICE WITH EGG

I’ve adapted this recipe from JGV’s book, Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges.  It has become one of my favorite ways to serve a take on fried rice, and I’ve enjoyed making it with several varieties of rice—jasmine, red jasmine, bamboo, long grain, short grain, etc.  Every time, it always turns out to be a very tasty dish.   I always serve it with a fish protein.
 
¼ cup grape seed or canola oil
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
2 Tablespoons minced fresh ginger
Pinch of Kosher salt
1 cup thinly sliced scallions
2 cups of day-old cooked rice (jasmine, bamboo, red – whatever you have on hand), at room temperature
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
¼ tablespoon grape seed or canola oil (must be neutral)
1 large egg
Sauté half of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the minced garlic and ginger and season (very) lightly with salt.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp and browned (see photo).  Drain on paper towels and set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in a large deep skillet over medium-low heat.  Add scallions.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes.  Ensure they are tender but not browned. 

Add rice to the scallion mixture and cook, stirring well, until heated through.  Season to taste with salt.  Remove from heat.  Remove rice from pan and place into a bowl about 5 inches in diameter.  Invert bowl onto a serving plate.  The rice will unmold into a dome.  Drizzle the sesame oil and soy sauce around the mound of rice.

Put the canola oil in a non-stick skillet and fry the egg, sunny-side up, until the edges are set, but the yolk is still runny*.  Put the egg on top of the mound of rice.  Top the mound of rice and egg with the garlic and ginger crisps and serve immediately.

*If you’re not comfortable with the “sunny side up” raw egg yolk, then, as the egg is cooking, break up the yolk to cook to make a “scrambled egg”.  Put this fully-cooked egg on top of the rice mold and add garlic and ginger crisps.  Serves 2

Quail Stuffed With Foie Gras and Topped With Wild Mushrooms

Whenever I visit my favorite butcher shop in NYC (Ottomanelli & Sons), I like to stock up on certain proteins that are never available at my local grocery stores.  Boneless quail is one of those items. And the mini frozen packages of foie gras is another.  All of Ottomanelli's products are very high quality and, although these particular proteins are frozen, they are very good.  So, basically, my comment is that “I have quail, on call” whenever I have a package in the freezer.

One dish that I like to make using the quail, when stuffed, is with foie gras and wild mushrooms.  This is a dish to make only once a year, typically in the dead of winter. Recently, I made the dish but "forgot" to include the wild mushrooms in the stuffing, so I opted to make a wild mushroom  topping with baby portobello and shiitake mushrooms.  This recipe is adapted from Chef Waldy Malouf of the Beacon in NYC from his book, The Hudson River Valley Cookbook.

Quail Stuffed With Foie Gras and Topped With Wild Mushrooms
THE FILLING:
8 oz. skinless and boneless chick breast
1 egg white
2 oz. Port
4 oz. light cream
1/2  tsp kosher salt and freshly ground pepper (combined)
Freshly grated nutmeg, about 1/8^th of a teaspoon
4 oz.  foie gras, cut in 1/4 inch dice
1/4 # spinach, blanched, chopped and squeezed as dry as possible
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

THE PROTEIN:
4 boneless quail (available from Ottomanelli & Sons Prime Meat Market )
4 slices of duck (or turkey) bacon
4 teaspoons unsalted butter

THE BRAISED WILD MUSHROOMS:

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup chopped shallots
2 Tablespoons minced garlic
1 Teaspoon fresh thyme leaves, chopped
1 # assorted wild mushrooms -- portobello, shiitake, etc.
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock -- preferably homemade -- NEVER the stuff in a can or a box or, worse, a cube

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

THE QUAIL:
Make the filling:  put the chicken, egg white, and  port in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.  While the processor  is running, add the cream, salt & pepper and grated nutmeg. Mix in remaining filling ingredients.  Put mixture into a pastry bag or a quart-size plastic bag (where you would cut the corner to mimic a pastry bag).

Lay the quail on their backs and using a pastry bag (or the plastic bag), squeeze the filling mixture into the cavities of each one, restoring their whole, plump shape.  Cross their legs to close in the stuffing.  Then, starting at the head end, wrap a piece of bacon around the sides of the quail and back to the head end to cover both openings.  The quail should be resting in a bed of bacon.

Place quail in oven; after about 20 minutes, dab about a teaspoon of butter on each one, and continue to roast for another 20 minutes.  Check for doneness.   Then, turn off oven; and let quail rest in oven.

THE MUSHROOMS:
In a large pan, heat 1/2 cup of the butter.  Add shallots, garlic and thyme.  Add mushrooms and saute until lightly browned.  Add wine and continue to cook until wine is absorbed.  Add stock; stir well and simmer until liquid is reduced and thickened slightly.  Season with salt and pepper and add butter.

THE FINALE:
Remove quail from oven and top with mushroom mixture.  That's it.