Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seafood. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Fighting the Sea Monster
If there's one virtue of long holiday weekends that I feel is overlooked, it's the movie marathons- namely, the bad movie marathons. Sure, all the tanned and toned must instinctively sun themselves by the pool like the cold-blooded reptiles that they are, but the subculture of pale and pasty Irish/German-rooted folk choose to seek solace from the sun's freckle-inducing wrath. So, we turn to movies.
On this Memorial Day, I got hooked on the movies of the Sci-Fi channel. I know: you're thinking, "but Joe, you seem far too cool and desirable to women to watch the Sci-Fi channel." ...
...
Anyway, the magnum opus of the day was a brilliant piece of film called Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, starring master thespians Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. There's not much plot to explain outside of the title, but here's a screenshot to give you an idea of the pedigree of cinema we're discussing:
I frankly don't know how you San Franciscans drive across the Golden Gate bridge all willy-nilly with this sort of imminent danger looming below. Careless!And- naturally- the other half of the equation in this film was an octopus of equal size and terror. Feeling the need to summon my own inner-giant shark, I sought out to dispatch the tentacled beast myself.
Octopus, although not incredibly prevalent on the American dinner table, is a popular and tasty critter in many Latin American, Asian, and Mediterranean cultures. I imagine the heaviest purchasing period in the States occurs when the Detroit Red Wings are in the Stanley Cup playoffs. However unusual as this food may be, most efforts I've tasted have been quite delicious (if not somewhat chewy).Prevention methods for said chewiness vary greatly on the interweb: from overnight marination to boiling to using a meat mallet to repeatedly smacking the critter against the pavement, as is supposedly common in Greece. Having neither the time for marination or a meat mallet (or a desire to have my neighbors watch me abuse cephalopods in my driveway), I opted for the boiling method.
Once the critter was inspected for cleanliness (my local fishmonger thankfully took the initiative to remove the innards, ink sac, eyes, and beak), I dropped it into a pot of boiling, salted water with a squeezed lemon and its rind. I let it go for about 40 minutes, hoping tenderness ensued.
After removed from the water and allowed to drain, I placed my eight-legged pal into a marinade of olive oil, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, chopped garlic, salt, pepper, and oregano. I let it stew for about 30 minutes before throwing over hot coals to crisp up the edges:
The now flame-kissed beast was cut it up into bite-sized pieces (removing the still incredibly-chewy bits), drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkle of sea salt, and a squeeze of grilled lemon. Overall, much was still a little rubbery, but the mild flavor (sort of like a cross between calamari and scallop) was very pleasant, and the smaller tentacles were tender and crispy.
Since only a fool would eat Mediterranean-style seafood without a bottle of wine, I cracked open a bottle of Assyrtiko from Santorini (a Greek island), graciously provided to me by wine PR pal Constance. She's always coming to the table with interesting wines from around the world (previously plying me with samples from Australia and Austria). Very cool. Maybe even cooler than a fictional battle between a giant shark and a monstrous octopus.
Brimming with confidence that a Greek delicacy like grilled octopus with lemon would fit the bill swimmingly with a Greek white wine, I was delighted that the Assyrtiko (a white wine grape native to Greece) proved to be a solid seafood match; very, very dry with mineral and lemon peel aromas, and it was fresh and clean. A little bitter on the finish (sort of like grapefruit peel), but a good complement to the octopus. With the mineral component so evident, I would probably pair this up with some oysters or shellfish in the future, yet the octopus had a mild enough flavor that- although not minerally- played nicely along the Assyrtiko's subtleness.However, I feel like the chewiness of a giant prehistoric octopus might be too much for the wine to handle...and where would I get a pot that big? Furthermore, I can't even begin to say how inappropriate this would be with enormous shark filets. I saw that shark eat a Jumbo Jet, a U.S. Navy Destroyer, a Frigate, a section of the Golden Gate bridge, and a Nuclear Submarine. With all those metallic elements surely affecting the flavor of the meat, I think something with petrol aromas- like a Alsace or German Riesling- would suit such a meal more appropriately.
Come back tomorrow, when we'll be discussing wines to pair with roast sasquatch, fricasse of ghost, Loch Ness Monster short ribs, and Deborah Gibson's acting career stew.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Slippery Slopes. Slippery Slopes Aplenty (3 weeks in).
Furthermore, when Dave from eatbufordhighway.com (great Atlanta food blog) posted this video (a while back, but I revisited it), I knew that I would be powerless to the cheese's awesome power:
Other than my concession to dairy (shamefully, I don't like eggs, so they're a non-issue), I've been pretty good. Once I dropped vegan and went vegetarian, things got a LOT easier. Since the now-infamous "CarnivoreFest" debacle, the eating has been pretty spartan, devoid of pork, beef, chicken, lamb, turkey, duck, and Rodents of Unusual Size. That being said, a slippery slope manifested itself on one of my latest (of many) beeswax trips to Mobile, AL.
"If it can't run away from you, fly away from you, or swim away from you, then it's a vegetable. Think about broccoli...there it is, just sitting there. Oyster? Same thing." -quote from a very convincing co-worker of mine
The oyster po-boy is a regional delight of the gulf coast...deep fried gulf oysters on a french roll with lettuce, tomato, and remoulade. And on that last trip to Mobile, there was a Wintzell's right around the corner, so I had to act on impulse...and excellent reasoning on the providence of oysters.
Okay, and I also at a lobster. It was amazing. And some canned tuna. So, an oyster po-boy, a lobster, a can of tuna, and some cheese. Other than that, I'm still on the path of righteousness. By next week, I'm sure I will have rationalized that all seafood does not count as "animal". Can someone provide more folksy wisdom to bolster this concept?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Shellfish Bastard
A trip to Your Dekalb Farmers' Market for some pepper go awry (as usual). If the image above doesn't look like a downright hootenanny, then- in the immortal words of Ivan Drago- I must break you. Ah, Dolph, we hardly knew ye. With all due respect to I Come in Peace, Red Scorpion, and Masters of the Universe, Lundgren really showed his range in Rocky IV. Cut from the cloth of the true thespian, he was.
[painfully obvious lack of transition]
Van Burin (fellow food-lover and not-fellow Cleveland-sports apologist) and I were playing God. How did we arrive at this divine authority to decide which crawfish were coming home with us, while others were spared? As our tongs- as if the hayforks of damnation themselves- guided the fate of our unsuspecting quarry, I pondered, "will the Rapture be this way? Will mankind be reduced to a proverbial sorting table of clammering crustaceans, only to be pluck'd at will by the Angel of Dea-"
"Dude," exclaimed Van Burin, "they've got fresh blue crabs."
Indeed, this wasn't going to be your daddy's Low Country Boil...
Woodstock Critter Boil
1 bottle white wine (something you'd drink by itself)
1 C Emeril's Original Essence (or make your own here)
1 C Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning
1 C Old Bay Seasoning
1 C Sea Salt
1/4 C Liquid Crab Boil
4 Lemons, quartered
4 Yellow or White Onions, quartered
5 lbs. White Creamer and/or Red New Potatoes (the smaller, the better)
2 lbs. Andouille Sausage (cut into 1" pieces) - ATL-iens, find Patak sausages!
2 lbs. Polska Kielbasa Sausage (cut into 1" pieces), Patak if possible
6-8 Ears fresh Corn, shucked and broken in half
3 lbs. live Crawfish, purged thoroughly*
5 lbs. (about a dozen) large live Blue Crabs (male)
3 lbs. 16/20 Wild American Shrimp, head-off, shell-on
Old Bay, for seasoning
Butter (go for the real stuff)
Hot Sauce (I'm partial to Texas Pete)
Step 1: Get a big pot. Mine is 25 gallons, but a standard turkey-fryer size (7-10 gallons) would work, depending on the size of the crowd. Oh, and you can bathe in mine. We didn't. That's gross. Anyway, we filled it up to about 2/5-1/2 full. Get that water a'boilin' (putting the lid on the pot helps speed up the process).
Step 2: As the water gets hot, add the Emeril's, Tony Chachere's, Old Bay, and Sea Salt and stir until dissolved. Also add the lemons, onions, and dill. I ended up moving all the solid stuff to the outside of the basket, so it wouldn't mix with the seafood. Basically, we just making a hellbroth of flavor here. Since the food is extracted from the broth, I really don't think you can over-season. Let everything meld for about 10 minutes.
Step 3: Add your potatoes to the pot. I know lots of folks like to add potatoes to a cold pot and cook them as the water heats. As these are pretty small potatoes, I think they'd get too overcooked by the time everything's done.
Step 4: After the potatoes have been in for about 10 minutes, add the corn and sausage. Let cook for 5 minutes.
Step 5: Add your thoroughly-purged mudbugs (aka crawfish) to the pot. Make sure they're submerged so they can soak up the goodness.
Step 6: After another 5 minutes, add the blue crabs to the boil.
Step 7: 3 minutes after the crabs go in, kill the heat, dump in the shrimp, and put the lid on the pot. Let everything steam for 3 more minutes (5 if the shrimp were still frozen).
Step 8: Extract the goodness (use an oven mitt, dummy). Transfer to a table covered with newspaper or foil pans. Immediately cover with melted butter and dust with Old Bay Seasoning. Grow fat off your accomplishment.
I tried several wines (too many that day) to find a good pairing with the meal. If you brush your teeth after dinner, I'll tell you all about them in another post!
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