Roasted Spanish Mackerel

So my local grocery store has these beautiful Spanish Mackerel right now and I thought I would pick some up and play with them.  They are sold whole, are bluish silver, with yellow spots on their sides.  They are usually pretty cheap, I was trapped in Winter Storm 2012 and had my mom deliver me a whole fish for me to hack up an make for dindin.  If you ask your fishmonger nicely, they will gut and clean them for you.  If you ask even nicer, they may filet them for you if you are too much of a sucker to filet it yourself.  Moms grabbed this delicious fish from Central Market

If you want to make this delicious fish like I did, go get yourself:

- 1 whole Spanish mackerel, will feed 2

- some panko breadcrumbs, which you should already have in your damn pantry

- a few spoons of capers

- parsley

- (I put some pepadew peppers in the mix too, which are spicy and sweet and you can find em at the olive bar at central market or Whole Paycheck, I mean Whole Foods)

- a lemon

Ho-Kay, lets make this fish…

- filet each side of this fish if you didn’t wuss out and have the monger filet it for you.  Use fish tweesers to remove the pin-bones that run up the head side third of the flesh. Lay each filet onto a plate over a little bit of olive oil

- in a food processer, buzz the capers, pepadews, and parsley and dump into a mixing bowl

- zest the lemon and add the zest to the breading mix

- add some panko, drizzle with olive oil, and mix the breading with a fork

- spoon the breading on to each filet and pat it down onto the fish

- I used this flat plancha that sits in my oven but you can use a large skillet if you have one

- heat the oven to 400, with your plancha or skillet preheating in it, and once preheated, lay the filet onto the skillet and cook for 10 minutes. 

- done…  eat it. 

- I served this with tomatoes that I halved and drizzled with olive oil and salt and somewhat dried by cooking in a 200 degree oven for 12 hours

- also served it with the squash (that I don’t freaking know the name of) that I cut and tossed in oil, salt pepper, and sugar, and roasted for about 15 minutes

3 Part Recipe; Mornay Sauce, Mac n Cheese, Croque Monsieur

This recipe was originally written for good buddy Wheeler but i have had a few people reach out requesting the recipe so im putting it out here for ya!  Remember, if you guys want me to share something... hit me up!

Let’s Make Mornay Sauce.  Mornay Sauce is a cheesy milk based sauce that we can turn into home-made Mac n Cheese, or Croque Monsieur (pronounced “croak messieeuur”), the sandwiches we made at Epcot France.

Here is what we need to make this stuff: 

-          ½ gallon milk

-          1 stick of butter

-          ½ cup of flour

-          Salt

-          Pepper

-          A little bit of grated nutmeg (don’t waste your damn time measuring it, just a few grates of fresh, or shakes of jarred)

-          A bunch of grated cheese (I usually grate up a bunch of different stuff, like cheddar, mozzarella, swiss… whatever you want to put in it.  Try not to buy the already grated stuff cause the bastards put a bunch of cornstarch and crap in it).  Grate more than you think you need, cause we need some to make other food..

Let’s Make this Sauce

-          Bring the milk to a boil in a pot (watch it, once it comes to a boil, you have to turn the heat down immediately or it will boil all over your stove)

-          While the milk is heating up, in another pan (non-stick is ideal) heat up the stick of butter until it all melts

-          Once it all melts, add the flour to the butter and stir it with a wooden or plastic spoon and it will turn into a paste

-          Turn the heat down to low and keep stirring it for like 5 minutes.  DON’T LET IT BURN  (You Just Made Roux)

-          Once the milk comes to a boil, dump all the Roux into the milk and whisk it right away and turn the heat down to medium

-          Keep stirring the milk and it will soon thicken up, turn the heat down to low

-          add your salt and pepper and nutmeg and stir it in

-          Turn the heat off and start stirring in a handful of cheese at a time until it looks like cheesy, gooey, cheese sauce

You have officially made 3 recipes from Classic French Cooking:

1)    Bechamel, the milk based mother sauce that can be transformed into numerous sauces

2)   Mornay, by adding cheesy goodness to the Bechamel Mother Sauce, you made Mornay

3)   Roux, the traditional method of thickening many sauces in French Cooking, you can use this to thicken gravies and stews

 Home-Made Mac n Cheese

Okay, you just made the Mornay Sauce, which is THE sauce for making real Mac N Cheese

Here’s What Else You Need to Make the Mac N Cheese:

-          A bag of pasta: bowtie, macaroni, rigatoni, squiggly tubes of noodle… whatever, as long as its not long spaghetti like stuff

-          More grated cheese, or maybe you have more from when I told you to grate more…

-          Some bread crumbs (I usually have Panko in the house, don’t buy that progresso crap, they putt all kinds of stuff you and your kids don’t need to eat)

-          A baking dish

Lets’ make some Mac N Cheese

-          Cook the noodles however the bag says to

-          Turn your oven on to 350

-          Drain them and dump them into your baking dish

-          Dump in like ¾ of the sauce and stir it a bit

-          Stir in some of your grated cheese

-          Pour the rest of your sauce on the top

-          Mix some of your breadcrumbs and grated cheese together and sprinkle it all over the top of your dish

-          Bake it at 350 degrees for about 20-35 minutes, until it gets as golden brown as you want it

You just made Home-made Mac n Cheese

Croque Monsieur

So we made Mornay Sauce.  Lets turn the sauce into golden brown delicious sandwiches…

Here’s What Else You Need To Make the Croque’s

-          Bread, 2 slices for every Sammy you’re going to make

-          Sliced Ham

-          Sliced Cheese, Gruyere is the traditional, but Swiss works fine

-          More grated cheese, or maybe you have more from when I told you to grate more...

-          If you want to turn the Croque Monsieur into a Croque Madame… which I almost always choose to do, then you need an egg for every sammy you are going to make

Lets Make Some Croque’s

-          Turn the oven on to 350

-          Spray a little pan spray or smear a little butter on to a baking sheet

-          Put half of your bread slices on the pan

-          Lay the ham and cheese onto the bread

-          Top the sammy’s with the rest of the bread

-          Now you are going to put a ladle of sauce on each Sammy and smear it around so it covers all the bread

-          Sprinkle shredded cheese on the top of all the sandwiches (you don’t want to load them up with cheese, just a bit more to top it off

-          Bake at 350 until they turn golden brown, about 8-12 minutes

-          I cut each sandwich diagonally and slap ‘em on a plate

-          If you want to make the Madame, just top each Sammy with a fried egg

Eat



Molten Gooey Cheese Boule

Okay tough guy, you want to make this oozing ball of cheese stuffed “bread”?  I put the quotes around bread because the dough is puff pastry, which contains probably as much butter as it does flour, if not more.  Why does this crusty stuff taste so good?

Okay sucker, here is what you need to gather from your local grocer:

- 1 box puff pastry, 2 sheets, easy to find the Pepperidge farms stuff in the freezer at the store, unless you happen to be a gangster pastry chef and are going to make this pastry by yourself… but not likely

- a ball of mozzarella cheese

- a block of gruyere cheese

- 2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach

- 1 egg

- sea salt

Lets make this ball of unhealthy happiness:

- leave the box of puff pastry and the boxes of spinach in the fridge overnight.  Or if you forgot to do it yesterday, leave the pastry on the counter for a few hours, and the spinach out of the box in a colander to thaw

- after the spinach is thawed, squeeze as much liquid out of it as possible, a handful at a time.  Wet cheesy bread is not going to be an awesome thing

- cut both cheeses into large (1/2 inch to 1 inch) cubes

- flour a surface and roll out the 2 sheets of puff pastry til it’s a bit bigger (I dunno, like 9x13 or something?  Don’t overthink this, its just cheesy bread

- on a cookie sheet, lay one sheet of dough down, then the other on top of it, with the corners offset.  (I don’t really know how to explain this, but you don’t want the corners all directly on top of eachother, like maybe rotate the second sheet 45 degrees so there are 8 corners on the edges

- start piling the cheese and spinach (in alternating handfuls) into the center of the dough. 

- after you fill it with all the cheese and spinach, start closing it by folding each corner up and over the top.  You want to fold each corner in opposite succession, like top, bottom, left, right… etc

- once its all closed up, beat the egg and brush a nice coat over the whole top and sides of the boule to get a nice golden brown color.  Sprinkle some sea salt over the top

- bake it in a 400 degree oven for about 25-35 minutes, until its all golden brown and delicious looking

- let it sit for 5 minutes or so, then slice it and watch the molten cheese ooze forth, and yourself get fatter 



Devouring a Whole Ram… I mean Lamb. Then Lets Eat at The Coterie Room!

It’s a cold December day and the Seattle Seahawks are playing the St. Louis Rams on Monday Night Football.  Both Josh and I take the day off to spend the day celebrating football and the cooking of whole animals.  Josh procures us a whole Ram… I man lamb, from Bill the Butcher and we are excited to use our Caja China again for a tailgate.

We arrive at the spot at 10 in the morning and begin the preparations to get this beast in the box.  Josh had marinated this carcass in a traditional Greek marinade of garlic, olive oil, oregano, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Even though raw, the beast smelled delicious on our ride to the stadium.  We butterfly the carcass and after a few inappropriate photos with firemen, get him into the rack that he will spend the next four hours on.  We covered him up with some sliced onions and then had to chop a couple inches off each leg to get him to fit into his cooking coffin.  Once in, the coals get started and it will be a couple hours until we see him again. 

Here is what the baby looks like after two hours.  He gets a flip, another pile of onions, and some bourbon poured on him for good measure.

As the evening arrives and it gets closer to game time… the temperature begins to drop and its freaking cold!!  When the beast is ready, the combination of smoke in the box and the heat cause an explosion of lamb gas when the box is opened.

After 4 hours, this is the masterpiece of whole baby animal that we created.  Minutes later, he is completely broken down, chopped and pulled into a series of serving pans.  I don’t usually put pictures of peeps on here… but check out Josh getting down on some bone.

I love baby animals, they’re delicious

After the game, we are a bit hungry (not to mention a bit inebriated).  Why don’t we hit up the Coterie Room?  

Another spot of Brian McCracken and Dana Tough, we know we will be eating well.  In addition to the series of drinks, we ended our evening with some pig skin  foie gras torchon   and fried chicken!



New Tailgating Toy; Roasting a Whole Pig

Team Tailgate is spending the weekend in Seattle for a back to back football game weekend.  After Tailgating with the Huskies and Cougar crew and after the Huskies take the game, we check into the hotel and rub a freshly deceased pig with a 60 garlic clove Mojo Marinade.

Now it’s time for food and drink so our Next stop is Tavern Law.   We grab some spots at the bar and its time for bourbon and Foie Gras!  And How about some Gnocchi topeed with a pile of braised ox-tail?  This fried chicken had some crazy maple syrupy sweetness going on in the batter.  Oh my!!! Burger and Fries!  Again, Brian and Dana make my belly extremely happy.  We wandered around Seattle stopping at random spots for random beverages, and eventually stumbled back to our hotel room, and our little piggy roommate. 

Sleep, 2 hours… pack pig in car… get to tailgate spot. 

We are exhausted, but super excited for our first go around with our new tailgating toy.  Behold La Caja Caribe.  We ordered this bad boy online.  They make the La Caja China  and I guess this is a smaller version or something, but perfect for tailgating. This thing was invented when Chinese railroad workers decided to build these things and put meat in it while they worked.  And at the end of the day, they had dinner.   So the sun is far from ready to come up but we have a cute little 60 pound pig all racked up for his hot-box. We rub him down and get the coals started.  It will be a couple hours before we see him again.  When the time comes we get to flip him over and take a gander.  After 4 hours, the time came… and here is what is worth waiting for.  Pigs are awesome.