Home Sweet (Provencal) Home

In celebration of the next, post-dissertation chapter of life (insert giddy clapping here), I have given myself a three-week pause at home to soak up the dog days of summer in the land of Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

This morning heralded the true culinary rooster cry of home with the smell of American bacon sizzling and blueberry pancakes browning on the griddle (which has approximately 20 years of untampered seasoning to it, save for the odd venison incident of 1995 when I offered it up for use in our French class ‘banquet’).

I’ll take this moment to respond to ‘Anonymous’ and his caviling of my dealings with bacon in my last post. ‘Anonymous’, you do put forth a strong argument for reasons why Americans tend to have a less-than-ideal experience with British back bacon. I think in the pork battle of America v. Albion, however, this round comes down to the same factors that make or break any dining experience: one must start, no matter what, with quality ingredients and implement optimal technique and equipment. I am 100% with you on the ‘carbon caked grill pan’ for use with both varieties. As for the differences in fat distribution (which ultimately make for the variation of flavour and texture), I think this is going to have to be a case where we agree to disagree.

And, so, back to Minnesota…

My second night home I was craving some grilled fish, and so we decided to make a summer Niçoise with leftover vegetables and new potatoes. To me, a Niçoise represents all that is good when the mercury rises—gorgeous grilled fish that is light yet packed with ‘carbon caked’ goodness; the June tomatoes are just on the verge of coming into July perfection; lettuce studded with green onion and parsley is clean on the palette, and a creamy white wine in the glass brings it all together. And it’s not too sore on the eyes, either!

We started with a beautiful, sashimi-grade yellow fin tuna steak, which we cut into thick strips and marinated for 15-20 minutes in salt, pepper, and extra virgin olive oil infused with Meyer lemons.

We then skewered each strip with two thin bamboo skewers (which had been soaking in water so as not to combust on the grill) and grilled on the trusty Weber charcoal grill for 2 minutes on each side. So simple and so tasty.

There were some less traditional additions, such as carrot, asparagus and beetroot, but that's what was at hand.

The joy from splurging on good quality tuna cannot be underestimated. The wonderful thing about a Niçoise is that if one throws a teaspoon of tradition to the wind, it's entirely cost-effective as well as delicious and healthy; the cost of the tuna is more than offset by using whatever produce you happen to have around. Take a rummage through the crisper and throw any root or tough veggies in the steamer with your potatoes (carrots, beetroot, asparagus) and you've suddenly found use for those bits of green onion, celery, or tomato that would have otherwise met their demise in the bin.

Ca ne mange pas de pain!

Carbonara & Bolognese...Sort Of

This post is a follow-up thought on how to make the most of leftover sauces—something that I found myself doing in the past days as dissertation word counts gathered in the psyche like stony, spring thunderheads.

It turns out that the creamy mustard sauce that we used for the haddock yielded far more than we were able to slather on the fish. So, having taken care not to touch the raw flesh with the spoon while applying the sauce, there was plenty left to be used in…something. Inspiration struck when D. had a chicken breast and bacon, et voila: creamy chicken pasta.

Well, actually, to be fair, it ended up as simply creamy pasta with leftover fish—a kind of mustardy, bastard cousin of carbonara. Both of us stood dumbly before the chicken breast in its Ziplock bag, clueless as to how long, exactly, it had been sitting in the darker depths of the communal kitchen’s refrigerator. Our senses told us ‘go on’, but a little voice inside whispering ‘you’ll be sorry—explain this one later to your supervisor’ got the better of us.

We started by rendering the streaky bacon, and here is a wee aside on bacon:

British bacon comes from the back of the pig (hence the distinguishing term ‘back bacon’), whereas American bacon is cut from the belly of the pig. The higher fat content of the belly meat is what gives American bacon (what the Brits call ‘streaky bacon’) its marbled goodness that allows it to crisp up to that delectable, crunchy texture. While both varieties are usually salt cured, American bacon is often smoked, elevating that crispy goodness to piggy nirvana. I suppose my loyalties here are less than veiled…but back to this pasta.

I removed excess fat and browned the bacon.

I then thinned out our leftover sauce with half-fat milk. This both cut the mustard (its harshness, that is. Oh, who doesn’t love a pun?) and created a proper cream sauce.

We then threw in some fresh tomatoes and red capsicum (bell pepper) with the bacon, added the sauce, and tossed with linguine. Yum! I have no doubt this would be good with chicken as well.

Another successful experiment involved a pasta bake sans pasta. Earlier in the week I’d made a simple Bolognese with onion, garlic, herbs, passata, tomato paste, crushed tomatoes and ground beef. Feeling like something lighter than pasta, I decided to improvise.


I had cherry tomatoes, an aubergine, a courgette, baby portabella mushrooms, and yellow capsicum. Thus, with the addition of mozzarella cheese, became the no-pasta bake (not to be confused with no-bake pasta).

I sliced, salted, let stand, and rinsed the aubergine; I cut the courgette into long slices (the long way, as with the aubergine), and chopped the cherry tomatoes and mushrooms in half. Using plenty of olive oil, garlic, and salt and pepper, I sautéed the aubergine until browned on both sides, followed by the courgette, and, finally, the mushrooms. I threw the cherry tomatoes in with the leftover sauce.

Then, it was traditional construction of layered lasagne (minus the béchamel and pasta). The thin-sliced sections of aubergine and courgette acted like pasta, however, soaking up the tomato juices while flavouring the whole dish. While not exactly ‘light’ in the end, the vegetables were tender and delicious, and it saved the Bolognese from going to waste.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Baked Fish

Attention, graduate students! You, too, can cook fish.

I know, I know: but money, but time, but technique, oh my!

Fear not. It has been a humdinger of a week with a d-day of another sort looming (submission of master’s dissertation on June 15th!), yet these two fish dishes came through for meals with friends this week. Both use a limited number of ingredients that are variable and easy to find —perfect for a last-minute creation using whatever happens to be loitering in the back of the fridge.

One hint for the grad student budget: get to know your local fishmonger and find out their delivery schedule. If you tend to cook salmon, for example, find out on which days the catch is delivered and try to stop by towards the end of that day, when the demand to move the produce is greatest—sometimes there are really good deals to be had! For both the haddock and the (organic, farm-raised) salmon used in the recipes below I was able to keep to a budget of 4-5 GBP/person.

The first recipe is an adaptation of Ina Garten’s ‘Mustard-Roasted Fish’ from her book Barefoot Contessa: Back to Basics.

This is the original list of ingredients for 4 servings:

4 (8-ounces) fish fillets
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 ounces crème fraiche
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon whole-grain mustard
2 tablespoons minced shallots
2 teaspoons drained capers

My haddock fillets came in two, approximately 16 ounce fillets, and I thought it best to keep them large and whole rather than cut them into smaller portions. This seemed to keep the fish more moist. The first ingredient substitutions were necessitated by the fact that, for some reason, Marks & Spencer’s had a run on capers and shallots. So, I substituted a 2/3 red onion to 1/3 minced garlic combination for the shallots and finely chopped gherkins for the capers. Oh, and we also opted for half-fat crème fraiche… This all worked surprisingly well! Our container of crème fraiche was 10 ounces, so I admit to having increased the amount of whole-grain mustard, ‘shallots’ and ‘capers’ by about 1-2 teaspoons each.

The recipe for this baked fish is incredibly simple. Just mix all of the ingredients together and cover the fish with a thick, generous layer of mustard cream. Bake at 200 C for 15-20 minutes and serve immediately. Our dinner was a bit of a pot luck and E. and D. came forth with wine, delicious bruschetta with diced tomatoes, grilled vegetables, and sundried tomatoes and a rocket salad. Yum! All in all, dinner was done in under 45 minutes, including preparation time.

The second fish recipe, which most friends have been subjected to at least once, is my salmon with chili jam, an adaptation of America's Test Kitchen's 'Sweet and Saucy Charcoal-Grilled Salmon with Lime-Jalapeno Glaze'--an oddly elusive recipe to track down!

Again, some substitutions were necessary. 'Sweet Chili Jam' stood in for the jalapeno jelly, and I added 2 tsp. soy sauce:

2 salmon fillets
Salt and pepper
4 Tablespoons toasted sesame oil
¼ cup sweet chili jam/jalapeno jelly
2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed through garlic press
1 lime; 1 teaspoon grated zest/ 2 Tablespoons juice
1-2 green onions, finely chopped
2 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Tinfoil

Rinse the fish in cold water and pat dry with kitchen roll.

Use tinfoil to create a large ‘boat’ for the fish; this does not have to entail symmetrical, 90-degree corners by any means—just make sure there is an ample lip running around the edge to hold in juices and bubbling, excess glaze. Nor does this need to be a large boat; in fact, the fish will stay nice and moist with a margin of about 1-2 cm.

Combine the jam, garlic, lime zest and juice, green onions and soy sauce in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. The sauce should simmer and thicken on the hob, about 2-3 minutes.

This is another divergence from the Test Kitchen recipe, but seeing as there was no grill available, improvisation was in order. To seal the fish and get that slightly caramelized surface colour, I first seasoned the fish with salt and pepper and then seared the salmon with a bit of toasted sesame oil in a red-hot skillet for a matter of seconds—just to crisp up the skin a bit and add some colour to the flesh (no more than 10 seconds per side).

Transfer the fish to the tinfoil ‘boat’, skin-side down, and spoon over 2/3 of the jam glaze.

Bake at 190 C for about 15-18 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fillets.

Take the saucepan with the remaining glaze off the heat; add 2 Tbs. butter, stirring until it’s incorporated; cover the pan and set it aside until the salmon is done.

Serve the fish right away while it’s hot, spooning some of the remaining, buttery glaze over the top. I served mine with jasmine rice and cucumber carrot slaw (just let thinly sliced cucumber and carrot sit in some rice wine vinegar, two pinches of sugar, salt, ginger, and a few chilis).

It’s simple, posh protein that everyone will love—and it takes no time at all!

For any fish or chicken recipe I tend to follow a glaze rule that includes: one part sweet, one part hot, one part citrus, one part savoury. It’s hard to go wrong. Another great combination is sweet mango or Major Grey’s chutney with the juice of one Clementine, red chili paste, shallot, garlic, and soy.