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
Trout Meunière — An Oregonian’s Ode to La Belle France and Julia Child
I thought about our trip to Paris last weekend when Charles and I were fishing at Mt. Hebo Lake and Charles was reeling in his first 12-inch rainbow trout. It wasn’t that the fishing adventure reminded me in any way of our trip. Instead, it made me think of the seafood in Paris and the passage in Julia Child’s book “My Life in France”, where she eats her first French meal in Rouen at Restaurant La Couronne and has sole meunière. She describes the buttery sole melting in her mouth, and I thought…trout meunière.
Cockles and Mussels, Alive, Alive-O! — Pan-fried and Steamed Cockles, Fresh from Tillamook Bay
Oregon and Ireland have more than cockles and mussels in common. The winter skies are similarly gray and wet, and there are more hues of green in nature in Oregon and Ireland than you can imagine, even during the wintertime. Another commonality: great seafood. If you like the outdoors, why go to a fishmonger? Catch it [...]
Jetty Fishing Yields a Tasty Bounty — Oven-roasted Kelp Greenling
For me, being in the outdoors and nature is a great stress reliever. No cell phones, beautiful mountains and streams, and even a tempestuous Pacific Ocean can be relaxing in a way that a good massage can be. This past week was particularly stressful for me, so I looked forward to fishing on the jetty [...]
Razor Clams - Succulent, Scrumptious Clam Steaks
I had not heard of razor clams until our arrival in the Pacific Northwest. At the market they are as elusive as wild truffles, seasonal wild mushrooms and fiddlehead ferns. If you find them fresh, change your dinner plans and prepare for a bivalve buffet. Option B, check for tides and conditions and forage your own. Option C, buy frozen. They do freeze well but you may have to purchase by the pound in set quantities.
In my opinion, forget the fancy or complicated preparations for these clams; simply pan-fried is best. Truthfully, there are many recipes for razors, just like other varieties, so if you prefer, get-a-googling and find one that suits you. Because of their enormous size, one clam, maybe two, should constitute an entree for one adult. Think clam steak!
Thai-inspired Martini Is a Toast to the Sea — and to Oregon
One of the things that I love about living in Oregon is the bountiful and fresh seafood available. Another is that the state embraces Pacific Rim cultures. As an Asian-American who has lived lots of places in the U.S., I’ve found it one of the most welcoming places to be. With our love of the [...]
Trout with a Pan-Asian Twist — Pepper Basil Trout
From my childhood in Thailand and Singapore, I remember a fish dish that Mom cooked. She would deep fry a whole fish and then smother it in sauce comprised of bell peppers, tomatoes and garlic that was simply seasoned with fish sauce. In most restaurants, this would probably pass as sweet and sour fish if [...]
An Adventure at the Oregon Coast: Tidepool Edibles
Oregon is one of those states where lots of people forage for interesting food. Some forage the forests for wild mushrooms in the fall. Others forage for truffles buried beneath the forest floor, with their truffle-sniffing dogs in tow. Still others forage the many tidal pools at the coast…for what? you might ask. Read on and you’ll discover some tasty edibles.
Corny Shrimp Pups
Wherever you find a carnival, a state or county fair, you will surely find abundant, itinerant street food and some form of corn dogs have been a part of that culture for decades.
These days, with many chefs and cooks thinking outside the box, variations on the original recipes begin to appear. Inspiration for Corny Shrimp Pups came from a Neiman Marcus cookbook that I recently purchased at Tuesday Morning for a song.
Dungeness Crab Enchiladas
Being an avid outdoorsman has one drawback: Sometimes I have too much bounty from the activities I enjoy — fishing, clamming and crabbing. To keep the family from getting bored, I draw on another favorite activity — creative cooking. Fishing, clamming and crabbing at the seashore in Oregon can be a tricky thing. First, you have [...]
Smoked Seafood Platter
For those of you who don’t get excited by raw seafood, smoked is a refreshing way to serve a variety of seafood that makes an easy and beautiful dinner presentation. When Charles and I went to Paris many years ago, I remember the displays outside the restaurants, with fish, oysters, clams and shrimp arranged in beautiful [...]
Dungeness Crab Martini - Cracked not Stirred
The martini is perhaps the most romanticized and bastardized alcoholic wallop ever invented. Among famous martini aficionados are Winston Churchill, FDR, Ernest Hemingway, Cary Grant and the fictional James Bond who preferred his “shaken, not stirred” and with vodka. H. L. Mencken once called the martini “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet.”
Does martini always = cocktail? What about shrimp cocktail? Why not an ample serving of simply dressed crabmeat presented in the same glass. My vision of a crab martini will be beautiful, unadulterated crabmeat dressed as simply as possible, allowing the sweetness of the crab to command center stage.
Roasted Acorn Squash Purée with Seared Scallops
Going shopping for dinner without a set plan can be a dangerous thing — at least for some people. For me, it reminds me of shopping the open-air markets in Bangkok as a child. My mom and I would roam the market to see what was fresh and then decide on the spot what to buy [...]
Mussels and Clams in Black Bean and Garlic Sauce
One of the nice things about living in the Pacific Northwest is the availability of live shellfish at the grocery stores. Almost any time of the year we can find live oysters, clams, and mussels. The mussels come from mussel farms in Washington State’s Puget Sound, live oysters come from the many Oregon bays as [...]
Gwyneth’s Clams
The foods of Spain are equally as rich in history and flavor as those of the Greeks and Romans and are tinged with abundant Moorish touches. Gwyneth’s Clams was inspired by a dish the four foodies enjoyed at Casa Pintos in Cambados. They were enthralled with the freshness, simplicity and the inclusion of fresh bay laurel and a copious amount of Albariño wine.
An Adventure in Crab Fishing and Cooking — Dungeness Crab Thermidor
Sometimes adapting a recipe can be a tricky thing when you start substituting ingredients. And when you adapt a complicated recipe like Julia Child’s Lobster Thermidor, it gets even more daunting, especially when you’re replacing the main ingredient, lobster, with Dungeness crab. It can be one of those kitchen experiences where you feel like you’re [...]
Sea Bass Steamed with Pickled Plums and Ginger
When contemplating what’s for dinner, fish comes to mind often in our household because we’re trying to eat healthy. One of my favorite childhood memories from living in Singapore is of eating out at seafood restaurants and being served whole fish that had been steamed with pickled plums (the Japanese call them umeboshi) and covered [...]
The Cooking of Joy ♥ Savoring the Flavors of Life
I have been pondering writing an article on “cooking with intention” for The Taste of Oregon for some time now. For those of us who enjoy cooking passionately, is it always entered into and experienced with a feeling of joy and excitement? Where is our mind? Nothing can spoil a pleasurable experience more than chatter between our ears, nagging us: “You didn’t start early enough, you don’t have all the ingredients, you’re out of your league, no one will like this, pickled pork is so passé,” etc., etc., etc. Fortunately, I learned some methods for silencing that chatter. After a brief “negotiation” with my mind’s voice I hear it whimpering, “OK, you win, I’ll shut up.”
Smoked Trout Mousse
I first tasted smoked trout when we lived in Baltimore. At a farmers’ market near our home, owners of the Metropol Café had a booth where they served all kinds of smoked seafood as well as cheeses. I remember the wonderful aroma and flavor of the smoked trout. One of the two women had gone [...]
Northwest Dungeness Crab Cakes
Maybe I’m experiencing a sort of mid-life crisis, but whenever I’m in the kitchen cooking something I love, I experience a warping of the space-time continuum. For instance, recently when I made Dover sole in a coconut curry custard wrapped in banana leaves and steamed, I was transported back to my childhood in Thailand when [...]
Trout à la Chateau Cuisine — Truites aux Morilles (Trout with Morel Mushrooms)
Fishing is one of those activities that I’ve come to relish for several reasons. It gets me out in the mountains, streams, rivers and lakes, to the ocean, on the beach to surf fish, or on the many jetties that dot the coast to catch rockfish. It reminds me that nature is constant and, at [...]
Shrimp, Scallops, Clams, Mussels and Potatoes Steamed in Belgian-style Ale
Vic and I were served this dish as an appetizer at The Brewer’s Art in Baltimore some years ago. It impressed us so much that we asked for the recipe. No dice! Realizing that steaming these ingredients wouldn’t be too difficult to re-create, we then begged for advice on which ale to use. A Belgian White was the curt reply. We dined at this well-known Baltimore spot frequently and surly service was never the norm. As a matter of fact, when creating the link to their site for this article, I learned that Esquire magazine had named them the #1 bar in America. For the record, Portland’s Horse Brass Pub was #5.
Simple to Spectacular — Parmesan-crusted Halibut with Sauce Marseillaise and Clams
Parmesan-crusted Halibut is a simple preparation worthy of standing alone with perhaps a spritz of lemon or a tartar sauce. It can also be dressed up in grand style with a heady Sauce Marseillaise which is tomato-based along with copious amounts of garlic, black olives, capers and anchovies. Nothing shy in this sauce! Steaming clams in this sauce and adding to the presentation is probably gilding the lily but sometimes it’s fun to put on the dog.
Winter Oregon monsoons mean a trip to the culinary tropics — Dover Sole Steamed in Banana Leaves
In the wintertime most of the U.S. is gripped by snow, freezing weather, or some combination of the two. In Oregon, we have the winter monsoons. It rains almost daily from November until April. Most of the time it’s a civilized, spritzing kind of rain, where you don’t need head gear. Sometimes it’s a heavier [...]
Crown of Deep-fried, Crab-stuffed Shrimp with White Remoulade Sauce
If you read this blog regularly, you know of our love for all things from seas, lakes and rivers. My first encounter with stuffed shrimp came at the Clear Creek Inn in Kemah, Texas. Kemah is on Galveston Bay near Johnson Space Center. Many restaurants in that part of the country are seldom fancy; they’re there to simply serve up the freshest seafood available. It was one of the famous Gulf of Mexico hurricanes that dealt my favorite Kemah restaurant its final blow.
Tasty Thai Fish Cakes — Tod Mun
Besides Thailand, I’ve lived in Singapore, Houston, Fort Worth, Austin, Baltimore, and now Salem, to name a few, and in each place there has been an abundance of Thai restaurants. How do I tell the good ones from the not-so-good ones? There is one dish I order at every new Thai restaurant I encounter so [...]
In the Great Crab Race, Dungeness Wins
In the great crab race, there are those who believe that Alaska’s King Crabs get the checkered flag and beat all other decapod crustaceans for flavor. When Charles and I lived in Baltimore, Md., and Fort Worth, Tex., we were in the stands cheering on the sleek Blue Crab while the rambunctious Floridians were raising [...]
Hard Work, but Worth the Effort — Periwinkles
When you get adventurous with food, sometimes you just want to drag your friends along, whether or not they know what they’re getting into. Lately I’ve been having this craving for something from my childhood in Thailand—Periwinkle snails—and I was thrilled to finally find that I could get some at Om Seafood in Portland and [...]
