Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Good Gravy

It occurs to me that my updates are not very frequent. Sorry! Had a guest and did some stuff. Have two weeks of cooking class yet. So far so good. The lesson foods are mostly made by the instructors with the occasional opportunity for us to join in. We follow along with the recipe in class, try some finished dishes to know how they're supposed to taste, then we're supposed to try the recipes at home. This most recent class was braising, pressure cooking, and microwaving things which were either too slow or too fast for us to join in the prep. With merely one recipe they de-mystified pressure cookers and now I want one. But that's for another time.

In general, I don't cook fish or curry at home. Fish because it requires buying it on the day you want it and I generally cook from pantry/frozen goods. Curry because it can take forever and often doesn't give me what I want or is too complicated. (One curry exception is the frozen Paneer Tikka Masala from Trader Joe's - I doctor it by adding chicken and veggies and it's wonderful.) So not having time to do a braising trial this weekend due to having a friend in town and not owning a pressure cooker, my recipe this week is a microwaved fish curry. Sounds revolting, no? Turns out it's both easy AND delicious. Wacky.

I considered taking a picture, but maybe next time. I was hungry. This is my version derived from the school's version. The teacher's version will be after the jump, and it was derived from a Julia Sohni recipe. Mine was good enough that I made some quinoa to more easily eat the remaining sauce.

Microwaved Filet of Sole Curry - Rev 3
Rub
1/4tcayenne pepper
1/2tPenzey's Maharajah Curry
1/4tground pepper
1cubeDorot frozen minced garlic
1/4inchginger, minced
1Tgrapeseed oil
Chunky stuff
1/2lbwhite fish, thin filet(s)
1small zucchini, cubed
1leafkale, torn into 1" pieces
5button mushrooms, diced
Sauce
1+tGrey Poupon mustard
pinchsalt to taste
6dollopssprayed from heavy whipped cream can

  • Put the filet in a microwave safe dish like a pyrex bowl or pie plate. Mix rub. Rub it on the fish, both sides. Let it sit for 15 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, chop the veggies roughly
  • Squeeze a stripe of mustard down the fish
  • Toss the veggies on the fish, salt the mess, and squeeze out some dollops of whipped cream a little bigger than golf balls.
  • Cover with Glad Press-n-seal, microwave for 3 minutes
  • Remove pan from microwave, on the far side of the dish peel back the plastic wrap (or cut slits) to let out the steam away from your face.
  • Use a spatula to flip and rotate the fish, recover with veggies as you're able
  • Recover and cook for 99 sec to 4 min more until cooked through
  • Do the same steam dance - away from the face - and let sit 1 min, then plate. Heat remaining sauce in bowl up to a minute to thicken and drizzle over plated dish.
  • Serve. Roll eyes back in head from tastiness and light texture of the fish. There's a lovely burn that shouldn't overwhelm anyone who eats any spicy food at all.




Microwaved Filet of Sole Curry - Rev 2
Rub
1/2tcayenne pepper
1/2tcumin
1/2tdry English mustard
1/2tground pepper
1tfresh minced garlic
1tfresh ginger, minced
2Tolive oil
Chunky stuff
1lbwhite fish, thin filet(s)
1smallred bell pepper, finely diced
1smallgreen/yellow pepper, also diced
5ozbutton mushrooms, thinly sliced
Sauce
1Tgrainy mustard
pinchsalt to taste
1/4cheavy cream
1tlemon juice

Differences - well, the peppers, obviously; they suggest covering the fish while it marinates; the mix of dry curry ingredients; mix the grainy mustard with the cream and pour over the mix, and the spritz of lemon juice goes on after it's done cooking. Remember not to steam your face. If doubling the recipe, only go +2/3 or less on the spices or so - use a scant teaspoon or a little less to avoid too much heat. FYI, concentrating the remaining cream sauce is my addition, along with the alternate veg.

2 comments:

Up My Mind said...

Love my pressure cooker. It gets the most use out of anything in my kitchen. Beeb cooking with a pressure cooker since I was a pre-teen. Mom's from Spain and that's how she learned. I try to convert all my friends to use one. :) Glad you're having fun in class.

My version of cooking class involves visiting my sister in the Bay Area (next visit this March!). She & my BIL are fab cooks. They even got me to eat my veggies. ;)

CrankyOtter said...

I will let you know when I get one. I have my eye on one but can't decide if I should go for expensive and awesome Swiss pressure cooker with lots of safety features, or cheap Presto.

I hadn't even considered how cool it is that they are "green" because they use less energy during the cooking process, even in the cases where they don't cook faster (when cooldown times are long, but done off heat).