Author: developer

BBQ Salmon Tacos

Tis the Summer Season of Salmon love! Salmon is one of our favorite seafoods because of its distinctive meaty texture and taste, plus its chocked full of healthy Omega-3 fatty-acids.

Lobster in Spicy Black Bean, Ginger & Garlic Sauce

One of my favorite meals to enjoy is Dim Sum. In years past I made regular treks up to Westminster with chefs and friends for Dim Sum at Seafood Paradise on Sunday morning. No sooner would we sit down, order some ice-cold Tsingtao beers when the carts would come rolling up the table…..immediate gratification! We would each create our own dipping sauces with chile paste, soy and hot mustard and dig. My favorite dim sum are the Shumai which are steamed dumplings made with a thin wrapper of some kind and filled with pork and shrimp…..great flavor and texture. In addition to the small dim sum items would order a large plate of style shrimp, lobster or crab prepared with ‘Salt & Pepper style or in a spicy black bean, ginger and garlic sauce. So I was at my local Gelson’s the other day and there’s a really nice lady who always works the seafood counter who saw me and said ‘’Today’s the last day of our Maine Lobster sale”! I know right away how I was going to prepare it.

Tis the Season… for Slow Roasted Goodness

With the onset of June Gloom, it’s time to embrace those slow cooked dishes that I love to make, eat and share with friends and family. One of my favorites is the old Italian classic ‘Osso Buco’ which literally means ‘pierced bone.’ I don’t understand why other culinary cultures, including American, haven’t embraced this dish. Maybe it’s because it’s become so expensive. I can remember when this dish was on almost every decent Italian restaurant’s menu selling for less than $20, but like many other secondary and tertiary cuts, its increasing popularity allowed meat packers to slowly and steadily increase the price. Part of this is because it normally is only cut from veal vs mature cattle, but seriously, it’s just a cross-cut portion of the shank or leg bone! I watched the same thing happen to skirt steak, once an inexpensive, flavorful cut of meat used for old school ‘London Broil’ or ‘Mexican Carne Asada’ that now can cost close to $20 a pound for choice grade! When entertaining, braised dishes are not only satisfying to your guests but also great for the host since they can be made a little bit ahead of time and either kept warm or briefly rewarmed so the cook is not scrambling around the last minute. This dish is traditionally served with a saffron scented risotto but I like it with either a creamy Parmesan polenta or garlic mashed potatoes, both of which can also be made ahead of time and held warm.

Summer Figs

Fresh fig season is short and we’re right in the middle of it now and I don’t know of any fruit that evokes a more sensual arousal in foodies than the fig. In fact, even in ‘pre-foodie’ times, D.H. Lawrence wrote an entire poem praising its sensuality… surely no fruit more deservedly owes claim to the adjective ‘luscious’ than the fig. A Simple Definition of luscious Having a very appealing taste or smell Richly appealing Very physically attractive

Seared Foie Gras… a Controversial New American Classic

Someone asked me the other day what some of my favorite foods were and the first thing that came to mine was a dish that always promises to draw out comments… foie gras. French chef Jean-Joseph Clause is credited for creating and popularizing pâté de foie gras in 1779 in Strasbourg, however, its origins date back far before French cooking made it a delicacy. The ancient Egyptians hunted and then domesticated geese, and discovered that waterfowl developed large, fatty livers after eating large amounts in preparation for migration. To replicate this naturally occurring large liver, the Egyptians, over 4000 years ago, developed the technique now known as gavage to produce a fattier bird. Paintings found on the tombs of aristocratic Egyptians depict the hand-feeding of geese, which served as an important source of nutrition around the Nile region.