Most of the time, this free food is simply left over from a shoot that I’m doing. Sometimes, it’s sent to me by companies that are looking for feedback, really excited about sharing their product with someone who thinks a lot about food, or someone who is simply looking for extra press. I certainly understand that there are some bloggers out there who prefer not to accept free stuff… but I’m not one of them. When I get free stuff, I never promise to write about it on this blog. It takes something pretty special, in fact, to make it on here. And, sometimes, I still don’t even get around to it. But, sometimes, like today, I do.

Today, I want to share with you a fish that I am really excited about. When I got mail from Hannah asking if I’d be interested in trying some Kona Kampachi from Kona Blue, I was intrigued. I’m a huge fan of sushi, and will always have a hard time turning away from sashimi-grade yellowtail. But, what really struck me is that Kona Blue is a company trying new methods of fish farming that attempt to solve some of the problems of related to traditional “aquaculture.” In-shore fish farm can create serious pollution problems, releasing waste and excess nutrients into water at rates that can’t be cleaned up by natural processes. Those farmed fish also tend to suffer from mercury poisoning. Kona Blue is fishing in large sea-cages sunk into deep water far off shore, so the fish can basically school as they would in the wild and the pollution problems can be avoided. And, at the same time, the natural fish population is not being depleted. The fish also boast a 30 percent fat content, high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, and no detectable mercury.

I think it’s really early to tell whether these new fish farming practices are a good thing or if they introduce problems of their own. But, I applaud companies for trying to solve some of these problems in a responsible way. Plus, I can tell you this, the fish is beautiful.

My package arrived well packed in ice, but not frozen, so the two, large fillets were immediately ready to use. The fillets are thick and fatty… perfect for a nice lunch of sashimi, with a ton still left over.

In fact I’ve been playing with a variety of preparations… the fish is so fresh, it’s almost a crime to cook it… but in addition to a sashimi miso salad, some simple nigiri sushi, I also lightly seared a good chunk and served it with a butternut squash mash and a fresh lemon dressing. Yum. I still have a whole fillet left that will have to be put to use quite soon. In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few shots and recipes with you.

If you want to try to find some of this fish on your own, you can order it from their website… but shipping is quite expensive. If you are in Seattle, Uwajimaya sometimes has it in stock and several area restaurants, like Canlis and Oceanaire have it on their menu. Or you can check out Kona Blue’s extensive “where to find” list.

PS: Thanks to Matt for correcting my initial mis-statement that Yellowtail is Tuna. In fact, it is its very own fish. All these years of ordering hamachi, and I always thought I was eating tuna!!!

Seared Yellowtail in Lemon Dressing
From Arabesque by Claudia Roden

I went searching through about 15 different cookbooks to find this super simple seared tuna recipe. Most of the other recipes I found piled on enough seasonings that the flavor of the fish would be lost. This yellowtail was far to lovely to cover up. What loved about the Arabesque recipe was how delicate the dressing is… it brightens and enriches the flavors already in the fish. I substituted hazelnut oil in the dressing, which I thought brought even a new dimension to the flavor. The original recipe also recommended pairing the seared fish with mashed potatoes, but I had some left over roasted butternut squash that I smashed up with a little OJ and a little cream which went beautifully with the citrus sauce on the fish. A little mache salad on the side brings a little more springtime to the plate.

1 lemon
2 T hazelnut oil
salt & pepper
1 thinly chopped green onion (or fresh chives)
2 T olive oil
1 thick-cut fillet of sashimi grade yellowtail (or tuna)

Zest and juice the lemon into a small bowl. Add the hazelnut oil, green onion and freshly cracked pepper. Set aside.

Heat the olive oil in a pan on high heat. Just before the smoking point, add the fish. Sear for only 1 minute on each side. Remove from heat. Slice into thin slices and sprinkle with sea salt flakes. Pour the dressing over the top to serve.

Yellowtail Sashimi in Miso Dressing
From Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking

Here’s another lovely recipe from Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking. This is so simple, but does require the best fish you can find, with a good amount of fat on it. The fat helps give a wonderful silky mouthfeel, not to mention a richer taste. You’ll need a few ingredients that you’ll probably have to go to an Asian market to get. Red miso paste and mirin can be hard to find in some supermarkets.

1/3 lb sashimi-quality yellowtail (or tuna)
3 T red miso paste
1 1/2 T casters (super-fine) sugar
1/2 T mirin
1 t rice vinegar
1/8 t dry mustard
1 1/2 c chopped green onion or chives
1 T finely grated ginger

Mix together the miso, suar, mirin, vinegar and mustard, until smooth and the sugar has dissolved.

Cut the fish into little cubes, about 1/2 to 1 inch each, and place in a medium sized bowl. Start adding the dressing a little at a time, stirring gently, until each piece is nicely coated. You may not need to use all the dressing… and I think it is best not to add too much dressing or you won’t taste the fish.

To serve, place in individual bowls, and top each with the green onion and a little dollop of freshly grated ginger.

The flavors go so well together if you just barely wilt the pea shoots in some olive oil, and give the strawberries a slice. They are fantastic served as little tarts with some pepper jelly and flake salt, or simply tossed together as a salad with a drizzle of balsamic syrup.

For the pepper jelly, it is easy to make your own or you can just use store bought.

Strawberry and Pea Shoot Toasts
makes 3 toasts

1 piece of bread, crust removed
3 pea shoots
1 t pepper jelly
3 small strawberries
olive oil
flake sea salt

Preheat the oven to 400F. Cut the bread into three rectangles. Place the bread on a parchment lined baking sheet, and toast in the oven for about 10 minutes, or until the edges become golden brown (the bottoms will be darker). Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Prepare the pea shoots by washing well, and then removing any thick or tough stems, preserving the leaves. Heat a saute pan with a splash of olive oil a bit, and add the pea shoots. Give them a little toss to coat them in the oil. Saute for about 1 minute, or until the leaves start to become a slightly darker green.

Remove the stem from the strawberries and slice into quarters or eighths.

Spread a bit of the pepper jelly on the toast. Pile on a wilted pea shoot, top with the strawberries and sprinkle on a few flakes of salt.

Pepper Jelly
(adapted from Happy in the Kitchen, Michel Richard)
makes about 1/2 cup

1 medium anaheim chile, seeded and minced
1/4 cup sweet onion, minced
1 T lemon juice
2 t sugar
2 t cider vinegar
1 t pectin liquid

Combine all ingredients except the pectin in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring to keep from burning. Increase heat and add the pectin. Bring back to a boil. Then, reduce heat again, and simmer for 4 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from heat and cool. Keeps refrigerated for about 3 days.

Technorati Tags: eatlocal, Food, Food Styling, Photography, recipe, Seattle

The idea for this salad came to me when I was looking at another photographer’s work. Oddly, it wasn’t a food photographer at all, but a children’s portrait photographer. My friend Robert sent me a link to Audrey Woulard’s portfolio, and her absolutely gorgeous child and family shots. Like Jinky Art, her work is mesmerizing. Her use of color, and the way she captures eyes is outstanding, and it got me to thinking about color and food, much in the same way that the chapter on cooking by color in Heidi’s Super Natural Cooking did. All of a sudden, I was fixated on the idea of a snow white salad of shaved fennel dotted with juicy dark red cherries.

The idea grew as I went to the market and picked up not only a beautiful fennel bulb, but also a nice ball of jicama and a sweet Vidalia onion, all beautiful white veggies that would partner well for the salad… both the jicama and onion adding just a touch of sweetness to round out the slight anise flavor of the fennel.

By the way, if you have never had a Vidalia onion, you don’t know what you are missing. They may look like your typical big yellow onion, but they are so sweet and juicy you could almost bite into one like an apple. Almost, mind you. Don’t go giving it a try, and then blaming me for it…

Anyway, back to the recipe. For the cherries, make sure you use really sweet cherries for this recipe. They don’t have to be dark cherries, but they should be very fresh, juicy and flavorful.

I was so excited with the picture in my head, that I had the music cranked and the doors open to let in the beautifulness of the day, and as I started to shave my produce, I also shaved my finger. So, the recipe had to wait a week. But, today, with finger still very much in bandage, I decided to brave my v-slicer once again. I’m so glad I did. Maybe the salad isn’t worth losing a pinky finger over, but I certainly did enjoy the savory sweet combination for my lunch.

Red and White Salad
Serves 2 as a side

1 lemon
1 fennel bulb
1 jicama root
1/2 small Vidalia onion
20 cherries
2 T honey
1 T rice wine vinegar
2 T olive oil
1 t fresh lemon thyme
flake sea salt
ground pepper (optional)

Juice 1/2 the lemon into a medium bowl, and add some cold water.

Trim any of the greens off the fennel, remove any tough outer leaves, and the core. Shave the fennel into 1/8 inch thick rounds. Place the rounds in the lemon juice water mixture to soak.

Peel the thick brown skin from the jicama, and julienne. Add into the fennel. Give it a toss to coat in the lemon juice water.

Remove the outer peel of the onion and shave to 1/8 thick. Add to the fennel/jicama mixture. Give it a toss to coat in the lemon juice water.

In a separate bowl, whisk together a dressing of the juice from the remaining lemon, the honey, rice wine vinegar and olive oil.

Drain the excess liquid from the fennel mixture, and add the dressing. Add the lemon thyme (leaves only, stems removed). Stir to coat. Cover and set aside.

Pit the cherries. One cool trick I’ve seen (in Martha Stewart Living) is to use a star-shaped pastry tip that is just a little bigger than the size of a cherry pit. Stick the tip on your finger, and then push it down from the top of the cherry just far enough to get past the pit. Give it a little turn, and pull up to remove the pit. It makes this job go very quickly.

Serve by heaping the fennel mixture on to a plate and topping with the cherries and a bit of flake sea salt and ground pepper.

Technorati Tags: Food, Food Styling, Photography, recipe, Seattle

Today, however, I managed a few hours in the kitchen, playing with my new fantabulous Kylie Kwong cookbook, Simple Chinese Cooking. I was already excited about this book, as I was just mentioning to Cam the other day that of all the cookbooks I have, I have none on Chinese cookery, which is quite funny because I really do like both cooking and eating Chinese. What made the whole thing more exciting however, is that Kylie was in Seattle yesterday, and I got to go hear her talk at Third Place Books up in Lake Shore Park. Despite arriving a tiny bit late (I thought it was the other Third Place Books location…), I did get to catch most of her chat about how she got into cooking in the first place and what inspired this particular book. Kylie had a fantastic laid-back casual elegance. She’s a comfortable speaker that clearly loves what she is doing. She created the book to help people step in to Chinese (and therefore other Asian) cooking even without a trip to Chinatown (or, if you are in Seattle, the more PC International District) and reshape some of the Westernized thinking of Asian food. Her goal was to have every recipe based on ingredients you can get from any supermarket, no specialty stores required. Each recipe was worked out cooking in her own home kitchen as well. Everything to make the cuisine more approachable for the home cook to achieve.

That said, Kylie still recommends going out of your way, if you have to, to find great, fresh, organic produce and meats. As with most modern chefs, she reiterated that the quality of the ingredients will make or break the quality of the dish. She spoke for sometime about a recent trip to China and realizing how challenging this can be to achieve in other parts of the world, with polluted streams and air. This was a striking concept to me anyway, as often I tend to romanticize eating “real” local food. Kylie, who has a new book and TV show (on Discovery) coming out sometime in the next year on travel and food across China, quite hammered in the point that eating in China doesn’t mean you are getting great Chinese food. 90% of meals contain MSG, and tend to make the flavors all blend together in what Kylie referred do as “that Chinese restaurant flavor.” Of course, the flavors and quality of food varies across any nation.. I’m less likely to order sushi in North Dakota where access to fresh fish isn’t as simple as walking 2 miles to the docks and where flavors tend toward the more meat and potatoes (not that I have anything against meat and potatoes. mmm. potatoes)

My copy of Simple Chinese Cooking just arrived yesterday (silly me, I ordered it forgetting she was going to be in town… luckily it arrived just before I had to go to the talk), so I haven’t had much time to spend with it yet. But, right off the bat one recipe caught my eye… Pickled Celery and Chilli. Now, I am just on a celery thing lately. There’s no explanation. I’ve always been super ho-hum on celery in the past. It’s always been such a nothing food to me. Then, all of a sudden, I can’t get enough of the stuff. It started with the celery salad at Serious Pie, and since then I’ve just kind of been craving recipes with celery. Go figure.

Anyway, when I saw the pickled celery recipe, I knew I’d be making it as soon as possible. But, I had also made up some little rolls from a variation of the no-knead bread recipe, using rice flour and whole wheat cake flour instead of all purpose. These were glorious hot little buns yesterday, but today, well, they needed to be used. Then a lightbulb went on above my head, and I decided that the pickled celery would go quite nicely with the bread cut into little rounds and toasted… kind of like bruschetta but with more of the flavors of Banh Mi. I kept mine super simple and veggie, but these would be perfect with some grilled pork or lemongrass chicken as well. So, not quite so Simple Chinese anymore, but definitely delicious.

Pickled Celery Bruschetta
(based on a recipe in Simple Chinese Cooking by Kylie Kwong, p 284)

The recipe is super straightforward, and she’s right, you can find almost all ingredients in the supermarket. The only thing you may have problems finding are the Sichuan peppercorns. If you can’t find them, use a combination of black pepper corns and red chilli flakes.

Also, I didn’t have any malt vinegar on hand, so I substituted the vinegars a bit. The original recipe called for 1/3 cup white vinegar and 1/3 cup malt vinegar.

1 bunch celery
3 t sugar
3 t sea salt
1/3 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
2 T balsamic vinegar
2 T fish sauce
1/4 cup roughly chopped mint (or cilantro)
1 T sesame seeds (optional)
1/2 cup scallion, julienned
1 red or green chilli, cut on the bias
sichuan pepper and salt to garnish

Trim the celery and slice on the bias into long thin, U-shaped strips. Place the celery in a bowl and cover with the 3 t of sugar and salt. Give it a quick stir to coat, then place in a sieve or a colander and let the mixture sit for 30 minutes in the sink or over a bowl. It will start to give off water.

While the celery is draining, combine the vinegars and the remaining sugar in a sauce pan on medium-high heat, until the sugar is dissolved. Then, simmer until the mixture is reduced by almost half and is a bit syrupy. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

If you haven’t yet, julienne the scallion and slice up the chilli. Squeeze the remaining water out of the celery mixture, and put the celery into a bowl. Top with the vinegar reduction and mix well. Then, add the fish sauce, mint and sesame seeds and give it a good turn.

If serving as a salad, go ahead and lightly toss in the scallion and chilli, and serve topping with the sichuan pepper and salt at the last moment.

Slice your bread thinly, and lightly brush with olive oil. Toast the slices in the oven at 350F for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown.

On each little round, place a good-sized scoop of the celery mixture, then carefully top with the scallion and one or two chillis. Sprinkle with a bit of the sichuan pepper and salt. Serve immediately.

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