Kiwi-marinated Grilled Pork Tenderloin with a Kiwi and Fig Sauce
And this little figgy piggy screamed “kiwi, kiwi, kiwi” all the way home!
This semi-exotic fruit lends a clean, tart flavor to savory dishes.
Category: Seafood
A simply delicious poached fish celebrates spring
It’s sometime amazing how a simply-prepared meal can taste so good. Such is the case with this Cod layered with cucumber slices and poached in a butter-wine sauce and served with a side of blanched rainbow chard simply dressed in olive oil and white wine vinegar. The flavors celebrate spring!
Celebrate spring with crab spring rolls
It’s springtime finally. Why not celebrate with a little Asian/Northwest fusion? It’s still Dungeness crab season in Oregon so grab some cooked dungeness crab and use it to stuff Vietnamese-style spring rolls. They’re a great way of showcasing the sweet and succulent flavor of the crab meat. The rolls are fun and easy to make. And along with noodles, spring salad mix and endless options for adding other veggies like julienned carrot, julienned cucumbers, julienned celery, spring onions, cilantro, and even chili peppers if you’re inclined to spicy, you can customize the spring rolls to your heart’s desire.
Easy and delicious Pulpo Gallego
One of the loves that I developed while living in Texas was a love for Spanish-style octopus. The first time I tasted it was at a tapas restaurant in Dallas. The octopus had been boiled, grilled and simply dressed with olive oil and lemon. Tender, smoky and tangy with lemon, it was delicious. I’ve periodically craved Pulpo Gallego since but it wasn’t until a few years ago that I got the nerve up to cook it myself. This is an easy and tasty recipe and the octopus comes out perfect every time.
Tuna adventure ends with delicious Albacore Poke
Ever since I became and avid fisherman not long after moving to Oregon, I’ve dreamed of fishing for albacore tuna. But the hefty cost, time commitment and other things conspired to keep it an unrealized dream for nearly 10 years. Finally, the past week during my two-week staycation, my spouse and my mother gave me […]
Crab and Corn Chowder
Corn is at its best in the hot summer months and, lucky for us, it freezes well so we can pair it when fresh Dungeness crab is at its best - in the cooler months.
Chowders are those rich, thick, stick-to-your-ribs soups usually made with fish, clams or corn with potatoes and onions swimming in milk, cream or both. Building this potage on a foundation of bacon seems like the perfectly natural thing to do so we will.
An easy and tasy smoked salmon chowder
This wonderful and rich smoked salmon chowder will take you less than 30 minutes to make and is a great dish for a cool wet night.
Crispy Trout with Kiwi and Mango Salsa
There’s something familiar about deep frying fish, but there’s also an exotic side. The familiar trout takes a walk on the wild side and gets a faraway flavor being deep fried and then topped with kiwi and mango salsa.
A meal of memories: Albacore Enchiladas with Cream and Mexican Cheese Sauce
Call it a mid-life crisis. Call it sentimental. Call it what you will.
I think that cooking is a way of conveying love and sharing a meal means sharing that love.
I was thinking of my cousin’s recent visit when I pulled the albacore out of the freezer and decided to make albacore enchiladas. I had purchased the fish in Newport, right off the boat, while my cousin and his wife were taking a tour of Yaquina Head Lighthouse.
Sublime albacore recipes use 5 or fewer ingredients
I never tasted fresh line-caught albacore until I arrived in Oregon. I didn’t know what the all the fuss was about until I tasted it myself. Call it skepticism. Call it one of Oregon’s lores. Seafood lovers I met after I moved here sang the same chorus: Once you taste freshly caught albacore, you’ll never go back to Charlie or the “chicken of the sea.” Here are two simple and delicious recipes that use five or fewer key ingredients. Try fresh albacore and you’ll be hooked.
Cockle cakes, chowder go together like Sonny, Cher
Clam cakes and chowder go together like spaghetti and meatballs, fish and chips, cake and ice cream
Smoked steelhead bruschetta and Left Coast White Pinot Noir: A perfect welcome for spring
Bruschetta using bread from The Bread Board made with smoked steelhead, miner’s lettuce and tomatoes and yellow bell pepper. Pair it with a great Oregon white pinot noir and say welcome to spring.
Spaghetti in Cream Sauce with Shrimp and Bacon Meatballs
I love shrimp! I love bacon! Shrimp loves bacon and bacon loves shrimp. We’re such a lovey-dovey group
Grinding them both up into some savory meatballs for pasta in a creamy sauce seems like a perfectly natural thing to do.
As a twosome, shrimp and bacon go back a long way. Back in the cocktail buffet days they appeared on tables as devils on horseback, a variation of angels on horseback. Often oysters or chicken livers stood in for the shrimp.
Green Garlic Shrimp Enchiladas
The green in this dish comes from the tomatillos and chiles, not from green garlic which are garlic plants harvested before the cloves form and mature. Garlicky it is and green as a shamrock with hints of pink from the shrimp peeking through the piquant emerald sauce.
Gulf shrimp are plentiful and it’s only natural that many would be dressed up in the bright, chile laden flavors of Mexican cooking. This dish can be searingly hot or mild depending on the type and amount of the small chiles.
Cumin-roasted Halibut with Cilantro Sauce and Warm Corn Salad
Cumin and cilantro - two of my favorite ingredients that bring big flavor to food. I’ve enjoyed a love affair with cumin since I strolled into Pendery’s spice store in downtown Fort Worth Texas. As I opened the door I walked into a warm, heady aroma of roasting cumin. My love for cumin was sealed with a sniff.
Cilantro, on the other hand, doesn’t envelope you with a strong fragrance that can fill a room. In order to enjoy a whiff, you must bruise a leaf and lean in for the scent.
Linda’s Smoked Salmon Dip
Most regions of the US have traditional party dips – In Texas we enjoyed guacamole and a wonderful hot dip made from Ro-Tel Tomatoes and Chiles mixed into melted Velveeta (you read right….Velveeta and it’s addictive.) In Maryland it was, of course, Maryland Crab Dip. So it seems perfectly natural that our wild salmon would end up as the main ingredient in a Pacific Northwest party dip.
I’ve enjoyed quite a few salmon dips since moving to Oregon and Linda Weiner Petrin’s is the one I love the most and she is generous with her recipe.
Jetty fishing yields tasty bounty: Thai Basil Rockfish
After months of the demands of everyday life, a demanding job, caring for an aging parent tie me up in knots, I look forward to fishing on the jetty at Garibaldi and applying nature’s pressure to my stress points, a kind of Shiatsu for the soul, if you will. Plus, if you’re lucky, after a day of fishing, you’ll end up with a seafood bounty of rockfish to cook for your family.
A crunchy Northwest treat: Deep-fried salt-and-pepper spot prawns
One of my favorite Chinese dishes, fried salt and pepper shrimp, where shrimp are deep fried whole and then sprinkled with salt and fresh ground pepper, inspired me to try the method with spot prawns. I figured that it would highlight the sweet meat of the spot prawns to cook them this way. Plus deep frying them with the heads on would mean that after removing the shell from the head and most of the legs, you could eat the remaining head with crunchy bits, like the way heads of ama ebi shrimp are deep fried and served to diners to crunch on whole.
Simple and delicious: Clams sautéed in garlic and white wine
Dinner doesn’t always have to be a big production. Sometimes the simplest dishes such as clams sauteed in garlic and white wine can be very satisfying as well as quick.
Crab Louie Salad - A West Coast Classic for 100 Years
Crab Louie Salad may have been born in San Francisco, Portland or even in Spokane. Written history informs us that it was being served at Solari’s in The Golden Gate City as early as 1914. A cookbook by Victor Hetzler, chef at the St. Francis Hotel, included a similar salad he called “Crabmeat a la Louise” in 1910. Some attribute its creation to Louis Davenport who built the Davenport Hotel in Spokane. An amusingly unorthodox source is The Neighborhood Cook Book, compiled by The Portland Council of Jewish Women in 1912.
Filet Mignon of Salmon with Marionberry Catsup
Filet Mignon of Salmon with Marionberry Catsup - “Filet Mignon” conjures up visions of a lean and tender cut of prime beef either simply grilled or lavishly dressed up with extravagant accoutrement such as fois gras, mushrooms, truffles and rich sauces like Tournedos Rossini. However they appear, they are special. Some years back, American menus started offering “Surf and Turf” – entrées loaded with meat and seafood for hungry diners who wanted to strap on the old feedbag, or so to speak. I never cared for such hedonistic platters but I do love the idea of bringing surf to the table dressed up like turf. Besides, just try to find a suitable wine for both red meat and seafood.
Pasta with Shrimps in a Creamy Tomato Sauce
When is the best time to enjoy the bright flavor of tomatoes? Anytime! These native Mexican fruits are at their best sun-ripened and just off the vine. For me, out of season tomatoes are merely flavor-lacking fruits disguised in a reddish skin.
Tomatoes, like fresh spring peas that maintain their freshness in a frozen state for months, can be preserved in a canned state for even longer. Happy is the summer canner whose larder is full of summer tomatoes put away as sauce, concentrated paste, chopped, whole or juiced. Tomatoes and cream pair happily with shrimp for this treat.
Roasted Buttermilk and Dill Marinated Salmon
Among our edible gifts of providence is the Pacific Northwest Salmon. It is food fit for the gods. Rich in flavor and an excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, protein, minerals and vitamins, it is often recommended for consumption twice a week.
Trout Croquettes
OK. I admit it. Trout croquettes sounds a lot nicer and more intriguing than saying fishcakes made from trout. But that’s basically what these are. People used to turn their noses up at fishcakes, but it’s been a staple in England for a long time. The economical British used leftover cod or other whitefish and […]
Oregon Cioppino
A good fisherman never wastes his catch. So what do you do when you go jetty fishing and end up with a kelp greenling? (A boney but tasty fish) You make an Oregon version of San Francisco’s famous fisherman’s stew, cioppino! Just add dungeness crab, clams and mussels!
Thai Pepper Basil Mussels
Nowadays, you don’t have to go foraging for mussels at the beach. Farm-raised mussels are so common that fresh mussels are available at most grocery stores year-round. One of my favorite ways to prepare them is in a Thai style with peppers, basil and a sweet and salty sauce. You can make it a starter or part of a meal by pairing it with another stir fry.
Dill and Mustard Fresh Salmon Loaf
Salmon loaves have been around for a long time and if you look for recipes, most begin with 1 or 2 15½ ounce cans of salmon. Begone with the canned and in with the fresh. While meat loaf is rarely offered to company as an elegant entrée, you can dress salmon up into a loaf fit for a queen.
An Oregon Cataplana of Crawfish, Spot Prawns, Clams and Mussels in a Rich Saffron Broth
I recall a vivid memory of my cousin Vernon and I bringing home a batch of crawdads from the creek in the field near his house and handing them over to our grandmother to fry up the tails. Big, brave stuff we were, foraging for our own wild food snack.
When I learned that Oregon is the second largest producer of crawfish, next to Louisiana, my boyhood curiosity was piqued. The Pelican State is accountable for about 90% of the nations crawfish with the Beaver State making up a chunk of the remainder.
