Category Archives: seafood

April 22, 2013

I did not cheat. I improvised.

Danielle, Jane, myself, Curt, Scott, Julie, David and Christo with our finished dishes.

I would not call it cheating. I just have to say that from the outset. I would call it creative use of ingredients not on the “approved” list but available to all. If they’d only thought of it. But only I did. That is my badge of honor and I will wear it proudly.

We are, all of us, fast friends. The Char-Broil All Star bloggers started as a group of strangers from all over the country and from different walks of life. But we are now a solid band of culinary nerds on parade. Until the grilling competition. Then we become Bobby Flay versus Morimoto in our own delusional version of Kitchen Stadium.

Char-Broil gets all of its bloggers together every year in some unimaginably luxurious setting. We’re pretty stoked about that. After meetings and demonstrations and what-not we get to the meat of the matter. A Chopped-style grilling competition. Winners get bragging rights for an entire year. This year, in Atlantic Beach, Florida, the focus was on seafood. We got a red snapper fillet, some calamari and head-on shrimp. And four ingredients we had to use: a blood orange, sun-dried tomatoes, collard greens and…ta da!…chocolate. There were additional ingredients: lemons, parsley, olive oil, thyme, and salt and pepper.

I am shocked that anyone noticed I had a giant log of butter at my station. Honestly, doesn’t everyone have better things to do?

So why would you not want to make a lovely blood orange juice and butter sauce to go over your grilled red snapper? What? You have no butter? Why would you not ask Sheila, my new best friend and the bartender, to procure a little butter from the kitchen? If only it had not come in a giant log. If only I had been able to conceal the butter under a napkin. If only, when Mary from Char-Broil asked what the giant log of butter was, I would have said, “My medicine. I can’t be without it, even for a second.”

For the record, Christo Gonzales used white wine. White wine was not on the approved list. Did anyone say a single solitary word to him about it? Did anyone actually notice that he used it since he was drinking heavily at the time and it could have just been his drink? It’s not as hard to conceal a few wee drops of wine as it is an entire foot-long log of butter.

My teammate, Curt McAdams of livefire, was a trooper. He never even questioned my easily-detected deception. And he didn’t even wince when I took the bold step of adding the chocolate to the collards, which turned out to be a triumph.

Curt took the award-winning photo of our dish. Yes, like children at the end of a Little League season, we all won a category. Danielle and Jane won the big prize, though, for a very fetching entry that involved stuffing seafood into shells. Hey, wait a minute. Shells. Were they on the approved list? Curt and I may have to appeal this to the International Char-Broil Court of Unfair and Arbitrary Judging. I’ll look up the address in a minute.

8 Comments

Filed under seafood, sides, Uncategorized

Tagged as Atlantic Beach, calamari, char-broil, chocolate, collard greens, red snapper, shrimp, southern cooking

April 19, 2013

Do you know how to grill a fish?

Here I am in sunny Atlantic Beach, Florida, at the annual Char-Broil All Star Bloggers conclave. It has been a tough couple of days. The All Stars have had to endure multiple hours-long meals with such hard-to-stomach foods as fresh shrimp, oysters on the half shell, mussels, lobster tails and other trash food. You’d think those Char-Broil folks could come up with something tastier. Sheesh. I will not lie. There has been alcohol involved. And 2 a.m. swims in the ocean. And, today, I had to struggle through a massage at the spa. There has been work done, too, but detailing my love of the Char-Broil grills and accessories is not what this post is all about. It’s about the carnage that is about to come. The seafood grilling contest.

Mary and Michael from Char-Broil consider the torture they are about to inflict upon the All Stars.

Every year, the Char-Broil folks pit the All Stars against each other in a cooking contest. Last year, it was chicken with five mystery ingredients we had to use. This year it is seafood. This afternoon, the All Stars were beyond excitement because we visited a local seafood store right on the ocean with cases and cases of beautiful fish. And then they made us wait outside. It was like being invited to Tiffany’s and then told we could press our noses against the glass but not touch any of the diamonds. The Char-Broil folks remained inside, selecting our mystery ingredients. We considered stopping some random stranger entering the store and slipping him a five spot to spy for us.

So the fish came out in unidentifiable white plastic bags. There will be five additional mystery ingredients. I am almost positive Marshmallow Fluff will be involved. The contest is not until 7 p.m., strategically planned I am sure to take advantage of the fact that many of us will have had a cocktail or two by that time. Last year, Christo Gonzales won. But that was completely unfair as he is a trained chef. My partner, Danielle Dimovski (Diva Q) and I came in second. We were robbed, only by virtue of the fact that we thought we could cook an entire chicken in an hour on a pineapple spear which turned out, sadly, to be untrue.

So, I will let you know. We will be grilling not 30 yard from the Atlantic Ocean. I do not know if it is considered cheating to leap into the waves and forage some fresh shrimp. But I can tell you I am not above doing that. Not at all.

3 Comments

Filed under seafood

Tagged as char-broil, fish, mussels, oysters, seafood, shrimp, southern cooking

October 30, 2012

Tilapia in Lemon Caper Butter

The price of fish has gotten ridiculous. Have you noticed this lately? Oh, my goodness. It costs more to buy some fish than it does to buy a steak.

In my affordability ring, the only choices right now are salmon, catfish and tilapia unless I decide not to send rent money to my son. I think that would probably be an unfortunate choice. Yes, dear, I know they’re throwing your futon into the alley, but I just had to buy some halibut.

Fortunately, I love tilapia. It gets a bad rap from professional chefs. Too bland. Not fishy enough. I actually think that’s a mighty fine attribute in a fish. And the great thing about cooking these thin filets is that when they look cooked they pretty much are. In other words, when they’re nice and lightly browned they’re done.

Capers. I see you. You’re making that face. You know the one. The “ewwww” face. Stop it. Have you even tried capers? They’re like tiny little pickles. I absolutely cannot make potato salad without them. Even the 8-year-olds in my son’s extremely brief Cub Scout career liked the capers in potato salad. It will cost you a couple of bucks to try them. Money well spent.

Tilapia in Lemon Caper Butter

3 tilapia filets

Flour

Salt and pepper

4 tablespoons butter

Juice of 1/2 lemon

¼ cup capers

Cut the tilapia filets down the middle, separating the thick side from the thin side. Dust filets with flour and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Saute the filets until they are lightly browned on both sides. When filets are done, add the remaining butter, lemon juice and capers and blend. Pour sauce over filets.

Shrimp and grits: The new signature dish of the South?

My friend and fellow Char-Broil All Star Blogger, Barry Martin, posed this question to me on Facebook: Is shrimp and grits the new signature dish of the South?

He got this idea from a story in the Charlotte Observer about every caterer and restauranteur in town serving shrimp and grits during the Democratic National Convention. And I have to imagine that many of the people from other parts of the country sampling shrimp and grits must have risen up in wonderment.

But the answer, I think, has to be this: How can any dish that’s been served for centuries in the Low Country of South Carolina be a “new” anything? I mean Craig Claiborne wrote about them in the New York Times in 1985, for goodness sake. Even the ultimate New Yorker, Bobby Flay, has a recipe for shrimp and grits.

What I think is new is that restaurants are serving them for dinner (or supper, as we say down here). Shrimp and grits is a breakfast food. Brunch, if you’re stretching it. The original name for shrimp and grits was Breakfast Shrimp because that’s what Low Country fishermen ate in the morning. Shrimp were cheap and abundant. They practically jumped into the pot of grits.

Southern food, in general, is enjoying a moment in the national spotlight and that is precisely because it is so originally of this place, of this soil and sea. Fancy chefs may gussy it up with caviar or micro greens, but at the end of the day our food is simple, local and humble.

This whole shrimp and grits fascination is one more passing phase. Remember when just a few years ago, everyone outside the South was going nuts over fried chicken? They were serving it on china in New York City restaurants along with a knife and fork. Give me a break.

And by the way, while I’m on a roll, there are a million different recipes for shrimp and grits. It’s the casserole of the South. How about that for a signature dish? Some people make them with a tomato gravy. Others use a brown gravy. For me, it’s no gravy. Just buttery shrimp and creamy grits. With bacon.

Shrimp and grits

Regular or quick-cooking grits (not instant!)

6 strips bacon

1 red pepper, sliced into strips

1 yellow pepper, sliced into strips

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 ½ pounds shrimp, peeled and deveined

BBQ rub

Juice of one lemon

Prepare grits according to package directions, using milk instead of water and stirring for about 20 minutes so that they are exceptionally creamy. If you add a hunk of butter at the end the grits will be all the better for it. Salt and pepper to taste.

Fry the bacon until crisp. Set bacon aside but reserve bacon fat.

In another skillet, sauté the peppers in about 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat until browned. Add garlic and sauté for 30 seconds. Remove from heat and reserve.

Sprinkle shrimp liberally with your favorite BBQ rub. Add the lemon juice and the shrimp to the bacon fat and sauté for one minute on each side or until shrimp have just turned pink.

Crumble bacon.

To serve: Put a couple of ladles of grits in a bowl. Top with shrimp and peppers. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon.

Serves 4.

2 Comments

Filed under breakfast, seafood, Uncategorized

Tagged as bobby flay, Craig Claiborne, Democratic National Convention, grits, shrimp, shrimp and grits, southern cooking

August 26, 2012

Tuna noodle casserole

When I was 9 years old, I wanted to be Catholic.

There were several extremely logical reasons for this. First of all, I was Presbyterian. We were known as “God’s Frozen People.” Not to knock the denomination to any of you devout Presbyterians out there, but we were a little on the boring side. Even my mother acknowledged as much since she would play tic-tac-toe with my sister and I in the balcony of First Presbyterian Church in Evanston, Illinois, so we would last through the service. Although I did enjoy my membership in the Children’s Choir until our first performance. We were magnificent and I was horrified when we were met with stone cold silence. “Why aren’t they clapping?” I asked a fellow choir member.

Trisha Walsh lived down the street. Now Trisha’s religion was something I could get excited about. Trisha was Catholic. She was one of nine children. It was 1962 and, not only was her house a hotbed of activity, but there were pictures of President John F. Kennedy everywhere on the walls. I thought he was dreamy.

I went to church with Trisha. Mass, actually. We got to wear little doilies on our heads, fastened with a bobby clip. The priests spoke in a foreign language. There was lots of kneeling and getting up and kneeling again. Activity. Something us Presbyterians were not accustomed to. At Trisha’s house, I got to say the rosary. I didn’t know what that was, but I liked the beginning: “Hail, Mary, full of grace.” Mary. A female figure of authority. We didn’t have that in our church.

But, most of all, I liked the food. Back then, Catholics didn’t eat meat on Fridays. And I waited all week to get invited to the Walsh’s for supper on Friday. Since there were nine kids, the menu did not include lobster. It was sardines, which I got accustomed to. And salmon patties, which I still adore to this day. And my favorite, tuna noodle casserole. Thinking back on it. it must have been a stretch for Mrs. Walsh to have one more mouth to feed.

I didn’t learn how to make tuna noodle casserole until years later. My teacher was Anne Clayton, who ran a catering company in Nashville and whose recipe for Tuna Noodle Casserole was published in The Tennessean newspaper probably around 1994. It is the only recipe I’ve used since and it takes me back to Mrs. Walsh’s house every time.

Clayton-Blackmon Tuna Noodle Casserole

Makes 8 servings

1 8-ounce bag wide egg noodles

2 tablespoons butter

1 bunch green onions, chopped

8 ounces fresh mushrooms sliced

1-2 tablespoons sherry

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup sour cream

1 cup frozen peas

2 6-ounce cans tuna packed in olive oil, drained

2 tablespoons diced canned pimento

Dash dried thyme

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups crushed buttery crackers

Paprika

Cook egg noodles in boiling water until done, according to package directions. Drain, rinse in cold water and turn into a large mixing bowl. Set aside.

In a frying pan, melt the butter. Saute the green onions and mushrooms over medium-low heat until soft. Add the sherry and cook a minute longer. Turn into mixing bowl with noodles.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine soup with sour cream and add to mixing bowl along with peas, tuna, pimento, thyme and salt and pepper to taste.

Turn into a 9-by-13-inch casserole dish. Sprinkle with cracker crumbs and paprika. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until bubbly.

2 Comments

Filed under casseroles, seafood, Uncategorized

Tagged as buttery crackers, casseroles, cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, southern food, tuna, tuna noodle casserole

June 6, 2012

Cooking live on the internet

Pearlman contemplates the salmon from afar

You just never know when you’re going to teach an old friend to cook salmon from 900 miles away. I am on Facebook last night and my friend, Jeff Pearlman, instant messages me. He is cooking dinner for his children. He lives in Westchester, New York. I am in Brentwood, Tennessee. He is in his kitchen. I am in my garage, because we don’t smoke in the house anymore. He has a question about cooking salmon. Actually, I’m guessing that from the first question he has never cooked salmon in his life. Here goes. In real time.

Jeff Pearlman

Chat Conversation Start

Quick question: how long do you bake salmon for, and at what temp?

How big is the salmon (thin or thick). And can you sear it in a pan instead?

medium-ish

I hate salmon baked. Tastes fishy to me. You should saute it.

uh, really? never considered that. it’s for the kids

Instructions from the SIMM World Headquarters - my garage

Kids deserve good food, too. So, here’s what you do. Apply some kind of rub or just salt and pepper if you don’t have a rub. Heat up the pan to medium/high. Film the pan with oil and when it sizzles, put in the salmon. Get it a good nice brown on one side and flip it. Cook for about a minute more and then start testing it with a fork to see if it flakes. Don’t overcook it.

i marinated it. that ok?

Marinated is good. Just pat it dry before you saute it.

ok. oy

You can do this.

wait, how long do you have each side on? roughly? the salmon—before flipping?

Give it about 4 minutes on the first side and a minute or 2 on the second before you start checking. If it’s not done, you can always add time. This is kind of hard not knowing how thick it is. Are you making this right now?

yup

It should look moist in the center.

but one side is pink, bottom is black. do i do them differently at all?

It’s got the skin on one side, I’m presuming.

yeah

Have you started yet?

yup

You want the skin side down in the pan first.

#@$%, i put pink down first

Flip it. NOW

@#$%#. it’s a wee-bit charred. just a tiny bit

The skin needs to be crisp. So keep cooking and lift it up with a spatula to see if it’s a nice brown color. You can always take the skin off. Just check the inside and see if it’s still moist.

how long?

You have to do this by feel. Intuition.

moist? color indicator?

Outside will be light pink. Inside will be more coral.

done with piece one. bottom sorta charred black. that bad? put piece 2 on. bottom down first

Oh, good. You have a do over. If it’s the skin side that’s charred it’s not necessarily bad. Taste it. If it doesn’t taste good take the skin off.

so about 3 mins? you have skype?

Yep (we get on Skype). You look cute. Show me your fish

no good?

OK, it’s about an inch thick. It looks pretty good. Put a fork into the center of it. What color?

pinkish

It’s a little underdone on the side that looks a little too moist. Throw it back in the pan on that side for about 30 seconds to a minute.

i took the fish off

So taste it.

i gotta go … kids need their food. thank you a ton.

OK, then. Good job! Go feed your kids. And send me a photo.

3 Comments

Filed under seafood, Uncategorized

Tagged as internet, jeff pearlman, salmon, saute pan, skype, southern cooking

April 25, 2012

Grilled blackened catfish with melon salsa and creamy grits

Hey, ya’ll. The weather’s finally warming up and it’s time to get outside to do some cooking. I have a great recipe (she said modestly) for blackened catfish using my trusty black-iron skillet on the grill. It’s posted on the Char-Broil site and if you would be so kind as to hop over there and take a look I’d be in your debt. Just click the link. Go ahead. Click it. Thank you.

5 Comments

Filed under seafood, sides

Tagged as blackened catfish, cantaloupe, catfish, grits, salsa, southern cooking, watermelon

February 26, 2012

Southern fried fish tacos

I am torn as to the theme of this post. Using things up or stuff I always have on hand. Let’s vote. Who wants using things up? Anyone? Anyone? Well, alrighty then. It’s stuff I always have on hand.

I am very proud to say that of the 14 ingredients in this recipe I only had to buy three – tilapia filets (it’s never wise to always have fish on hand), cilantro and a lime. Everything else was already happily residing in my fridge or pantry. I always keep mayonnaise on hand, but that’s not unusual in the South. We use mayonnaise, preferably Duke’s, on everything. I hope I don’t get diabetes like poor old Paula Deen. I always have sour cream on hand because it’s a key ingredient in my mashed potatoes, which I make about every third day because who doesn’t like mashed potatoes? Cabbage – from the farmer’s market and it keeps for like two years in the fridge. Mexican melting cheese. A must have for quick quesadillas. Buttermilk. Buttermilk? Who keeps buttermilk on hand? Well, do you fry? Do you? Raise your hand. If you fry, you must dredge and if you dredge you must have a liquid vehicle for the flour/cornmeal to adhere to. Thank you. Have buttermilk on hand. Don’t drink it, of course. It’s nasty.

And cornmeal. Not cornmeal flour. Actual cornmeal. I keep mine in the freezer. It’s an old habit born of living in Florida where critters can invade your cornmeal and flour. There’s nothing more disgusting, except for cockroaches.

So I am pretty proud of this recipe. My original intent was to make tradition fish tacos with a beer batter. But then I decided to bread the fish with cornmeal. Good call. And if you are of the (old) school that fish and cheese don’t go together, you are just slap wrong. Just consider lobster mac and cheese. Or a McDonald’s filet o’ fish sandwich. I rest my case. And if you didn’t know that some serious foodies have a thing about fish and cheese then I’m sorry I brought it up.

Southern Fried Fish Tacos

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Juice of one lime

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cumin

Peanut oil

4 tilapia filets

1 cup buttermilk

Cornmeal

Salt

8 small tortillas

2 cups shredded cabbage

2 cups shredded Mexican melting cheese (or any type you like)

Combine the first six ingredients in a small bowl and let chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.

Heat about a half inch of peanut oil to 350 degrees or until it bubbles immediately when you put the handle of a wooden spoon in the pan.

Cut the tilapia filets lengthwise to separate the thick and thin portions. Then cut each piece in half widthwise. Place the buttermilk in one bowl and the cornmeal in another. Soak the filets in buttermilk and then dredge in the cornmeal.

Fry the tilapia until golden brown on both sides. Drain on a wire rack and immediately sprinkle with salt. Heat the tortillas wrapped in paper towels in the microwave for about 20 seconds.

Top the tortillas with the fish, cabbage, cheese and sauce.

1 Comment

Filed under cheese, seafood

Tagged as cheese, cornmeal, fish tacos, mayonnaise, southern cooking, tilapia, tortillas

February 17, 2012

Shrimp scampi

My friend, Mary Ann, goes on a mission from time to time to empty her entire freezer, refrigerator and pantry of all food objects – finding a way to make them into some kind of meal. I admire this. When you look in the freezer and there are unidentifiable objects that you cannot remember putting in the freezer, that is a bad sign.

I have a few. I have bags of Thomas Keller’s beef stock that I made, oh, more than a year ago. It was a torturous process making that damn stock so I value those bags far more than I should. Perhaps I can sell them on E-Bay. I have cornmeal that I got at a BBQ contest in 2009. Does cornmeal go bad in the freezer? I don’t think so, but I don’t really know. I have meatloaf mix that is tinged with those telltale frost crystals that mean it has frost burn. But I am too cheap to throw it out. Plus it would mean thawing the meatloaf out so that I, being extremely cheap, could wash the disposable plastic container it is housed in.

So for the past week or so I’ve been trying to honor Mary Ann and just cook from the ingredients I already have. To be completely honest, I have more ingredients than most. Do you have miso sitting in the refrigerator? Do you even know what it is? How about fish sauce, sumac and za’atar? Oh, I could put some links in here, but I think you need to look them up. The exotic stuff, plus the usual such as pizza dough, an array of vegetables, canned everything, a gross of rice, barley and pasta, frozen chicken, pork tenderloin, ground beef and sausages from West Wind Farms (I will give them a plug because they are the best sausages on the planet and you need to give Ralph and Kimberlie Cole some love and order some) would feed Mark and I for at least a month.

Which led me to shrimp scampi (scampi is really a name for a type of small lobster but, of course, we’ve screwed this up in the United States and what it means here is shrimp in a butter and lemon sauce – we’re so uncivilized). My poor shrimp had been frozen so long that ice crystals were forming on them. So that’s what Mark got tonight. Shrimp scampi with thin spaghetti, of which I have at least 10 boxes because I cannot pass up the “buy one, get one free” sales at the Publix.

If you can find wild American shrimp, please spend the extra few pennies to get them. They’re better for the environment, they’re caught off Southern waters and they sustain our precious fishermen.

Shrimp scampi

1 pound shrimp, preferably wild-caught American

1/3 cup butter

Juice of one lemon

¼ cup dry white wine

3 cloves garlic, chopped

¼ cup minced parsley

Shell and devein shrimp. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the lemon juice, white wine and garlic. Saute garlic for about one minute. Add the shrimp. Salt and pepper to taste. Saute the shrimp for about one minute on each side until they turn pink but are still plump. Sprinkle with parsley.

Serve over buttered pasta.

2 Comments

Filed under pasta, seafood

Tagged as pasta, publix, shrimp, shrimp scampi, south, southern cooking, wild american shrimp

August 31, 2011

Grilled shrimp with Comeback Sauce

O.K., ya’ll. This is brave new territory for me and I need some help. A few months ago, Char-Broil asked me to blog for them. Actually, they asked me and 29 other food bloggers. But I’m pretty happy with those numbers.

My first blog is up on their site and one of the things they ask is that I not re-post those blogs here. I get that. The idea is to drive traffic to their site, which is quite entertaining I must say. So I am hoping you will wander on over to their site and read about grilled shrimp with Comeback Sauce, which you should because it’s delicious. And if you want to leave a comment on their site, that would help me out, too.

I’m going to blog for Char-Broil every month or so and I’ll send you on over there when I do. But most of my time will still be spent right here. I have to say that for the past few days I’ve been sick as a dog and not at all hungry for anything, which makes food blogging hard. And poor Mark. He’s almost been reduced to eating cat food. So thanks for hanging in and staying tuned.

Now get on over there to the Char-Broil site. Just come back after. OK?

3 Comments

Filed under seafood

Tagged as char-broil, comeback sauce, grilled shrimp, south, southern cooking

Category Archives: seafood

I did not cheat. I improvised.

Do you know how to grill a fish?

Tilapia in Lemon Caper Butter

Shrimp and grits: The new signature dish of the South?

Tuna noodle casserole

Cooking live on the internet

Grilled blackened catfish with melon salsa and creamy grits

Southern fried fish tacos

Shrimp scampi

Grilled shrimp with Comeback Sauce

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